By the Way, Meet Vera Stark

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BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK

Photo: Joan Marcus

Cititour.com Review
The Twitter hashtag “OscarsSoWhite” may be fairly recent, but the sentiment behind it has been a glaring issue for close to a century. So even in a year that has garnered multiple Oscar nominations for the films “Black Panther,” “Black KKlansman” and “If Beale Could Street Talk,” Lynn Nottage’s seriocomic “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” which tells the fictional story of the first African-American woman to receive an Oscar nomination, feels entirely relevant today.

One other thing hasn’t changed, at least since the show’s first New York outing in 2011: Kamilah Forbes’ new production at the Pershing Square Signature Center still struggles with the tonal whiplash of Nottage’s piece. The first act is written and played – by an exemplary cast -- as broad screwball comedy; the second, while poking some easy laughs at a trio of nattering nabobs, takes the plight of Vera’s professional and personal struggles much more seriously.

We meet Vera (the sublime, multi-talented Jessica Frances Dukes) in 1933. She’s a wannabe actress who is working as a maid for screen sweetheart Gloria Mitchell (a delicious Jenni Barber), a former child star with a fondness for alcohol, sweets, bitchy remarks and nervous breakdowns. But Vera isn’t a maid because it’s her best career option -- although it may be judging from the plights of her roommates, hardworking Lottie McBride (a sensationally sassy Heather Alicia Simms) and gold-digging Anna Mae Simpkins (a hilarious Carra Patterson); the hidden truth is Gloria is actually Vera’s half-sister.

Unfortunately for Vera, Gloria is all too consumed by getting the starring role of Marie in the 19th-century period film “The Belle of New Orleans” to help Vera even get an audition for the somewhat substantial role of Marie’s maid, Tillie (“a slave with lines,” as she aptly tells Lottie.) So, when a cocktail party at Gloria’s posh home (nicely designed by Clint Ramos) suddenly turns into an impromptu audition for the film’s high-minded yet ultimately clueless director Maximillian Von Oster (a spot-on Manoel Felciano), Vera decides to break all her inner vows about maintaining her dignity just to gain her one chance at a significant speaking role. And watching Dukes transform almost instantly from a level-headed young woman into a walking (and singing) stereotype is both hilarious and slightly painful.

As the second act begins at a cultural symposium, we get to watch (on film) that Vera does get the coveted role, earning that unprecedented Oscar nod and launching her decades-long career. But was this part really the start of something big? The answer is revealed via clips of a 1973 talk show featuring the last public appearance by Vera, who is spectacularly dressed (by Dede M. Avite) and sounds like a grande dame.

While being fawned over by show’s unctuous host (an amusing David Turner), Vera is also simultaneously sloshing martinis, half-apologizing for her current appearance in a Las Vegas revue and dealing with an unexpected reunion with a still self-obsessed Gloria. Above all, she’s trying to make sense of the past 40 years, which includes two failed marriages and a lifetime of roles that proved to be little more than a variation on Tillie. Above all, Vera realizes that she can’t escape the largest truth of all: her first part still defines her to the public, no matter what else she accomplished.

Unfortunately, her vital self-examination gets a little more lost than it should, both to everyone on the talk show and in the Signature audience. That’s partially because Nottage puts a little too much focus to the talk show’s other guests including both Gloria and a Jagger-like British rock star Peter Rhys Davis (Felciano), and partly because she spends far too much time on the inane, self-aggrandizing commentary of symposium leader Herb Forrester (Warner Miller, properly obnoxious), lesbian poet Afua Assata Ejobo (Patterson, still in scene-stealing mode) and academic Carmen Levy-Green (an effective Simms).

But if you can tune everyone else out and really listen to Vera, you can hear what she --- and Nottage – really want to tell us about racism, not just in Tinseltown, but in all of America. #Stillhappening.

By Brian Scott Lipton


Visit the Site
http://www.signaturetheatre.org/shows-and-events/Productions/2018-2019/By-the-Way-Meet-Vera-Stark.aspx

Cast
Starring Jenni Barber, Jessica Frances Dukes, Manoel Felciano, Warner Miller, Carra Patterson, Heather Alicia Simms, and David Turner

Open/Close Dates
Opening 1/29/2019
Closing 3/10/2019


Theatre Info
Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
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