It imagines the back story of one of those talented actresses seen on ’30s movie screens almost exclusively in the roles of maids, slaves or mammies. 09.30.2012 / Culture Spot LA . “Slaves with lines?” asks Lottie, joyfully.) The play unfolds the journey of Vera Stark who works as a maid but is trying to break into the Hollywood scene at a time when speaking roles for African American actors were almost unheard of. Photo by JoanMarcus. But none of them come close to matching the fully inhabited, spiky ambivalence of Ms. Lathan as she appears in the second half. ‘By the Way, Meet Vera Stark’ Review: Lynn Nottage’s Sharp Teeth A revived play splendidly dramatizes a little known episode of black Hollywood history Heather Alicia Simms… Signature Theatre presents By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, written by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage and directed by Kamilah Forbes, as part of its 2018-2019 off-Broadway season. We are always aware of the agile body beneath those clothes, forced to bend in so many ways that eventually nothing comes naturally. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, See all details for By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, © 1996-2021, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. “How come in Los Angeles nobody actually does what they do?” asks Vera. WHAT "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark". This play has a wonderfully juicy premise. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. By the Way, Meet Vera Stark Lynn Nottage's "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark" indicts the industry's checkered minority record while exploring our own fractured relationship with our movie memories. Read By the Way, Meet Vera Stark book reviews & author details and more at Amazon.in. At the Second Stage Theater, 305 West 43rd Street, Clinton; (212) 246-4422, 2st.com. Seventy years later, film buffs are left to reflect on the life and … After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Performances are staged at The Irene Diamond Stage within The Perhsing Square Signature Center. While you’re at it, meet Hattie McDaniel. But as embodied by Sanaa Lathan, she is so sharply focused she stings. . WITH: Stephanie J. (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark plays at the Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, through March 10, 2019. Then there’s Leroy Barksdale (the appealing Daniel Breaker), a musician working as a chauffeur. Brand new Nottage, came quick, no complaints. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for By the Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage (2013, Trade Paperback) at the best online prices at … Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage begins her Residency 1 in the 2018-19 Season with Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine under the direction of Obie Award-winner Lileana Blain-Cruz and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark. By the Way, Meet Vera Stark- Goodman Theatre- This “sharp-toothed comedy” (The Wall Street Journal) offers a glimpse into the life of Vera Stark, a headstrong African American actress who begins a career in the 1930s, at a time when her only shot at success lay in stealing small scenes in big Hollywood blockbusters. She works alongside other actors only because she needs someone to talk to, but none—in her estimation, and in mine—are her equals. Even if it wasn't as smart and entertaining as it is, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark would be worth seeing for Sanaa Lathan's phenomenal performance as the title character, both as the young Vera, and the almost unrecognizable one we see when the play fast forwards to her last public appearance on a 1973 TV interview show. It’s a question that could just as easily be asked today. KJZZ’s theatre critic Robrt Pela reviews By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, now at the Herberger Theater Center in Phoenix.Vera Stark is, like so many actresses who start out hungry and wind up legendary, alone on her own stage. The liquored-up woman in the trippy gown is Vera, vintage 1973, making an appearance on a talk show. It is a comedy that discusses the roles of women and blacks and takes place in 1933, 1973, and 2003. (Ms. Nottage has said she was specifically inspired by Theresa Harris’s appearance in the 1933 Barbara Stanwyck vehicle “Baby Face,” but Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers and Fredi Washington come to mind as well.). It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. This play was my thesis show, and I aboslutely loved it, but be warned, this printing is not the same as the final Dramatists copy used in rehearsals. The title character of Vera Stark is based in part on black actress Theresa Harris. Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2015, Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2017. Variety Review: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark . Whether in the 1930s or the 1970s, the excellent Ms. Lathan, seen in the 2004 Broadway revival of “A Raisin in the Sun,” wears her period outfits with just the right combination of comfort and discomfort, like someone who has learned to find style in a straitjacket. The subject matter, and the writing, in this play is superb! I will confess to being a little obsessed with maid–turned–movie star Vera Stark, the fictional subject of Lynn Nottage’s 2011 play By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, now being revived at off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre.. Again, she is fictional. .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review. By the Way, Meet Vera Stark NYT Critic's Pick Off Broadway, Comedy/Drama, Play 2 hrs. Lynn Nottage’s 2011 satire gets an … In the first act Vera is a real-life maid to Gloria Mitchell (a happily hammy Stephanie J. The Signature Theatre celebrated the official opening of its Off-Broadway revival of Lynn Nottage's 2011 satire By the Way, Meet Vera Stark February 19.Directed by … As written and acted, the older Vera is so fully and intriguingly drawn that you can’t help thinking what a play this might have been if everything else were on the same level. There are moments throughout “Vera Stark,” directed by Jo Bonney, that provoke hearty laughter and troubling thoughts at the same time. WHEN | WHERE Through March 10, Signature Theatre, 480 W. 42nd St.. INFO $35-$60; 212-244-7529, signaturetheatre.org. Like “Fabulation,” “Vera Stark” is a mix of cartoon broad strokes and grittier emotional detail that never quite blends smoothly. A biting wind of realism, blowing both hot and cold, sweeps into the second act of “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” the fitful comedy by Lynn Nottage that opened on Monday night at Second Stage Theater. Its main characters are all survivors of rape and genital mutilation as a result of the ongoing conflicts. Presented by the Second Stage Theater, Carole Rothman, artistic director; Casey Reitz, executive director. Theater review: 'By the Way, Meet Vera Stark' at Second Stage Theatre May 9, 2011 | 7:00 pm From New York — Playwright Lynn Nottage is best known now for her harrowing Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Ruined,” a play about a group of Congolese brothel workers surviving the aftermath of horrific wartime violence. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Block), a self-dramatizing movie star known as “America’s little sweetie pie.” While Vera makes sure that the self-sabotaging Gloria knows her lines, arrives at her appointments and wears the right clothes, she is also hoping to break into pictures herself. Jessica Frances Dukes and Jenni Barber in By the Way, Meet Vera Stark. Filled with contempt and gratitude for the applauding studio audience, she wears the conflicted history of being marginally famous as conspicuously as she wears that flashy dress. Reality, in this instance, assumes the fantastical form of an aging, teetering woman in a psychedelic-print dress and Technicolor makeup, applied with a trowel. “Vera Stark” is Ms. Nottage’s first play since “Ruined” (2009), her harrowing, Pulitzer Prize-winning portrait of women in a Congolese brothel, and it shares that work’s sense of being shaped by a probing mind and thorough research. 09.30.2012 / Culture Spot LA ... 10.08.2012 / Santa Monica Mirror ‘By The Way, Meet Vera Stark’ On Stage At The Geffen Playhouse . The review made me eager to see By the Way, Meet Vera Stark ; Click on the address link E-mail: [email protected] Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V): Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. More enjoyably, the second act includes a clip from the film that Vera finally made (as imagined by Tony Gerber) and the priceless 1973 talk-show sequence, in which Mr. Garrison is perfect as a fatuous Merv Griffin-esque host. Fuse Theater Review: “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark” — On Race and Hollywood April 6, 2013 Leave a Comment The chief glory of the Lyric Stage production is an ensemble of eight actors that agilely accents the humor dramatist Lynn Nottage utilizes to temper her examination of the darker racial and political subtexts of the period. 09.27.2012 / Variety . Photo: Joan Marcus. Meet Vera Stark was finished in 2013. Amazon.in - Buy By the Way, Meet Vera Stark book online at best prices in India on Amazon.in. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Also Read: 'By the Way, Meet Vera Stark' Theater Review: An Awkward Look Back at Early Black Hollywood. Love it...can't wait until I have a chance to play Vera! (Photos by Joan Marcus) But its tone is closer to that of Ms. Nottage’s earlier “Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine” (2004), an antic comedy about the lure and dangers of self-reinvention for African-American women. Variety Review: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark . Lynn Nottage photo by Gregory Costanzo. A Black Actress Trying to Rise Above a Maid. The first act is sharpest when Vera and Lottie pragmatically assess their career opportunities. But much of the comic material here feels stereotyped in itself, bringing to mind lively but formulaic sketch routines from satiric variety shows like “In Living Color.” As directed by Ms. Bonney, the acting swings wildly between proper characterization and caricature. Traveling through time from the 1930s, to the 1970s, to the present day, Meet Vera Stark cleverly shows the lives of African American actress and how opportunities changed, and how they didn't. That remains true in the second act when Mr. Breaker, Ms. Gregory and Ms. Olivo show up as 21st-century cultural pundits, pondering the career of Vera, now vanished.