| A race comedy. And one of Lynn Nottage's best plays. It's not entirely successful, but it's a scathingly sharp take on Old Hollywood's race politics. VERA STARK dramatizes the plight of African-American actors struggling to find work--and to represent themselves--within a culture that will not allow for real, nuanced depictions of their experience. The moral seriousness of this subject is illuminated by Nottage's fierce humor. The play's an intellectual hybrid of racial satire and boulevard farce which is as improbable as it is successful (with the exception of the panel of cliched, po-mo academics that nearly bring the otherwise surprising second Act to a halt). All of the actors are spot on--Jessica Francis Dukes as the elderly Vera Stark is startlingly good--and the direction is splendid. Even as it sometimes sacrifices dramatization for illustration--those academics again--VERA STARK sails along with wicked, satiric characterization. A unique play and a fitting tribute to lives we never knew because we couldn't, to be precise, picture them. |
