Playwright Lynn Nottage is known for revealing truths about the lives of the Black diaspora. Her stories are like ripping the bandage off a wound so that it can shock, be acknowledged, and maybe spark curiosity. By The Way, Meet Vera Stark gazes with a gimlet eye behind the scenes of the movie industry and Black strivers during the "Golden Age of Hollywood." The Artistic Home Ensemble is the latest to take on one of Nottage's more comic plays. They succeed in some ways, and while I found it funny, I also found it to be uneven for something meant to be a whiplash satire.
The play is directed by Risha Tenae, with an able cast that gets laughs at the right time, but it doesn't have the bite of satire about racism. The characters are realistic, and the play hits many truths about mainstream movies, keeping people of color in subservient roles. It is the story of Vera Stark (Ashayla Calvin), who has made her way to California after time on the vaudeville circuit, where she first met "America's Little Sweetie Pie," Gloria Mitchell (Caitlin Jemison). While the play takes place in the Busby Berkeley era, there are no illusions about being discovered while sitting at a soda fountain. Vera and her fellow artists have to make a living. There is no irony in her becoming Gloria's maid.
Gloria drinks too much gin and is a bundle of insecurities. Her whining to Vera about having to audition is met with a caustic comeback. What is usually referred to as "sass" in Black women is directness, yesterday and today. How Vera and Gloria use each other is only part of the journey in By The Way, Meet Vera Stark. The deal-making and compromises to get a film made are shady. Everyone knows about the underbelly but puts up a glamorous or stereotypical front if necessary.
The play is set in the 1930s, during America's economic depression. At that time, the most popular movies were escapist fare, like Flo Ziegfeld extravaganzas. A chorus girl lives lean but dresses like a star. A poor songwriter is in love with her, but he asks her to marry him. He is really a bazillionaire—enter Ruby Keeler to take over the lead in the chorus. That is the image, but By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is an amalgam of every Black actor who pushed their way starring in race films or "all-Negro casts" like Stormy Weather. Roles that should be for Black women go to white women. Ava Gardner played Julie, who passes for white in Showboat. That role was supposed to go to Lena Horne.
Vera and Gloria have a mutual past, and there is a hint that Gloria is passing for white. Besides being Gloria's maid, Vera's life is a shared apartment with two other aspiring actors—Lottie McBride (Justice Ford) and Anna Mae Simpkins (MarieAnge Louis Jean). Lottie is the most jaded of the three. She fondly recalls her days of playing Juliet in an all-Black Romeo and Juliet. Her reenactment of Juliet's suicide by dagger is over the top but in step with the style of acting in the early days before technology allowed for subtlety. Anna Mae has designs on a wealthy white director and is open about using sex to make her way. Vera has snagged a copy of the hottest script in town, The Belle of New Orleans, and has designs on scoring a part for herself.
When the play opens, Gloria runs lines with Vera for her audition as the tragic octoroon Marie. The tragic mulatto or octoroon was a common trope in those days. A woman may look white, but she is doomed to either die alone or be set out with her even lighter mixed-race children. Gloria's star is fading because cuteness is over when you reach 18. The irony of Gloria passing for Black fits in with screwball comedy. Ashayla Calvin has the world-weary yet savvy quality to make a way where there is no way. Her cynicism is part of what makes the character so interesting. Vera is no wide-eyed naif and knows the score about the casting couch. She calls Gloria on her crap and ignores her tantrums. Calvin is good in the role and holds her own against Gloria's flashier role. Jemison perfectly portrays Gloria's insecurities while clawing her way into the role that could save her career.
Director Risha Tenae makes some interesting choices with the pacing of the play. I think the fast-talking banter of movies in the '30s would have played quite well in this work. It feels like the actors are off their beats and do not have a unified rhythm. Envision Fred Astaire and Edward Everett Horton in The Gay Divorcee. The cadences and continental accents make the script even funnier.
A litany of Black actors fought their way through the movie business, made names for themselves and were demonized for participating in "coonery," a racial slur for compliant and low-IQ Black characters like Stepin Fetchit or Mantan Moreland in any Charlie Chan movie. The racial irony there is that Charlie Chan never featured a real Asian actor in the role. That particular practice is called Yellowface and a parallel to Blackface. Actors like Hattie McDaniels, Louise Beavers, and Butterfly McQueen caught a lot of flack for playing the roles of simple-minded and subservient people.
Vera Stark can be compared to Josephine Baker, who was only celebrated in America when she was at the end of a luminous career in Europe. Stark is portrayed as a troublemaker who is anything but docile.
I liked By The Way Meet Vera Stark. I have also enjoyed other Lynn Nottage plays like Intimate Apparel and Ruined for their down-to-the-marrow depictions of love, disappointment, and betrayal, often by one's own people. This production has some great comic bits, but the pacing and uneven acting detracts from the satire. The elements of set design by Kevin Hagan and costumes by Rachel Lambert give some punch to this show as a period piece. Gloria's Art Deco-inspired apartment is fun and has that shiny 1930s escapist vibe. Vera and Lottie's place looks like a Depression-era flat.
There are some technical issues to fix, such as the projections of The Belle of New Orleans. The footage has a celluloid look, which is really cool. If it were real, it would be a candidate for the National Film Preservation Foundation. The sound was a bit rough, and one of the films only had sound with no picture. These things can be worked out, and I hope they will. It may have fleshed out the career challenges that Vera faced.
There are more indignities than one play can address, but By the Way, Meet Vera Stark gives a decent overview. I recommend it with reservations. They really have to get the technical problems in order. There are parts missing from the story that would have been useful to see. Also, Calvin hits her stride as the older Vera looks back on her career. The missing footage shortchanges her character's development. I recommend By the Way, Meet Vera Stark as a launching pad if you want to delve into the history of Black women in the film industry.
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark plays through November 17 at the Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. Running time is 2.5 hours. Tickets are available here. For more information, please visit www.theartistichome.org.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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