Theresa Harris was a luminary of Hollywood’s Golden Era in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, co-starring opposite the likes of Barbara Stanwyck and Ginger Rogers and ultimately being inducted in 1974 into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
If you’ve never heard of Harris, it’s partially because as a Black actress, her name was omitted when the credits rolled, even when she had equal time with her big-name co-stars. Harris was also repeatedly cast as a maid, a stereotype she fought throughout her decades-long career to overcome.
With the “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright Lynn Nottage uses Harris’ story as the inspiration for a production that walks a fine line between screwball comedy, skewer-sharp satire and incisive reflection on racism and stereotyping in Tinseltown.
The intersection between laughing and cringing is substantial in the Artistic Home’s full-throated production of Nottage’s modern-day classic, which runs through Nov. 17 at West Town’s Den Theatre. The laughter comes from Nottage’s savvy mix of physical and verbal humor, both embedded in a story that traverses from 1933 through the early 2000s. The cringes come from witnessing the daily humiliations and soul-eroding compromises — ranging from mildly infuriating to profoundly enraging — Vera endures as she navigates an industry that doesn’t see her as anything other than a slave or a servant.
Directed by Risha Tenae, “Vera Stark” is a balancing act where farcical comedy walks a wire with high-stakes drama and wry, incisive social commentary. Tenae needs to tighten up the comic timing; at times “Vera Stark” lingers a beat too long on the more physical bits.
But as the production moves through the 20th century, it delivers a snapshot not just of the life and times of Vera, but of an industry that has shaped and reflected the culture of the world around it for over a century. Fumbling maids and backstage shenanigans give the production an often goofy veneer. Vera’s passionate ambitions and determination give it a spine. The trade-offs she’s forced to make to succeed give it dramatic heft.
When we initially meet Vera (Ashayla Calvin), she’s working as housemaid to former child star Gloria Mitchell (Caitlin Jemison), once “America’s Little Sweetie Pie,” now a fading platinum blonde long past her Shirley Temple era. Vera gets her big break when she’s cast as Mitchell’s on-screen maid Tilly in “The Belle of New Orleans,” an antebellum Southern gothic tale. The role of Tilly is a breakthrough in the industry, Vera exclaims in one of Nottage’s many brutally funny lines, because it’s that rarest of parts: “a slave with lines!”
The making of the movie is a series of comic stops and starts. Vera is all passion and ambition, but through her off-set interactions with roommates Lottie (Justice Ford) and Anna Mae (MarieAnge Louis-Jean), Nottage creates a full portrait of Vera’s struggles and insight into her relentless drive to triumph over them.
Tenae has a massive stylistic switch to maneuver in the second act, when the action moves from the stage to an actual screen for key scenes, the time frame from Hollywood circa 1930s to an academic colloquium in the 2000s, as a panel of academics debate whether “The Belle of New Orleans” was a groundbreaking classic, Vera Stark its true star.
Four Films Studio crafted the production’s second-half screen segments: A black-and-white series of melodramatic scenes from “Belle of New Orleans” shimmers on an upstage scrim, followed by a segment from an early ‘70s talk show (think Merv Griffin-meets-Phil Donahue) segment where Vera and Gloria briefly reunite.
At every turn from the 1930s on, Calvin gives Vera a mix of grit and drive, tamping down the compromises she’s forced to make for the sake of furthering her career until she seems dangerously close to losing crucial aspects of her very identity. Justice’s Lottie provides comic relief as both foil and accomplice to Vera. Louis-Jean brings heat, conflict and humor to AnnaMae, who survives in Hollywood in part by posing as a Brazilian bombshell evocative of Carmen Miranda.
After Hattie McDaniel — who Nottage references in “Vera Stark” — won the best supporting actress Oscar for 1939’s “Gone With the Wind,” more than half a century would pass before another Black actress (Whoopi Goldberg) took home filmdom’s most iconic trophy. “Meet Vera Stark” sheds a witty, wince-inducing light on artists determined to shine regardless of the race-based barriers.