Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, June 27, 2014 Page: 27 of 36
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Burlesque Peepshow presents this tribute to the 1950s
and ’60s with classic burlesque characters, and with
boylesque male star Jett Adore performing as well.
Texas Theatre, 231 W. Jefferson Blvd. Doors at 8 p.m.,
curtain at 9 p.m. $20-$25. TexasBurlesque.com.
FINE ARTS
Group Show 2014. Craighead Green Gallery
presents its collection of current artists, with the
artists in attendance. 1011 Dragon St. 5-8 p.m.
TUESDAY 07.01
FILM
My Fair Lady. The hit musical, winner of eight academy
Awards, with two “confirmed bachelors” turning a
Cockney flower girl into a society maven. Part of the
Tuesday New Classic series. Landmark’s Magnolia in
the West Village. 7:30 p.m.
In brief: ‘By the Way, Meet Vera Stark’
The first act of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark —
playwright Lynn Nottage’s play about the African-
American experience in the 1930s, as lived by black
women on the fringe of the movie business in Holly-
wood — is an intriguing and unexpected comedy
played with wit and a veil of pathos. Vera Stark
(Yolanda Williams, pictured center) is a housemaid
to a popular young starlet — “America’s Sweetie
Pie,” Gloria Mitchell (Lee Jamison, right) — who
dreams of getting her own break in the movies. It
seems unlikely, and not just because good roles for
African-Americans are hard to come by; any roles
are scarce. Those that are available usually revolve
around slavery, or call for Steppin Fetchit-like stereo-
types, or are maids (which Vera actually has some
experience with). But Vera is savvy and educated
and has self-respect. She knows black people aren’t
the sum-total of white screenwriters’ limited imagina-
tions, and she wants to nab a juicy supporting role in
an upcoming Civil War epic that Gloria is angling to
star in. But how can she even get an audition?
There’s a lot going on under the surface in the
first half of the play, where even the “liberal” white hi-
erarchy (a European director played by Aaron
Roberts; a social-minded studio exec played hilari-
ously by Paul J. Williams) deceive themselves into
thinking they “get” what it’s like to be black. The di-
rector is such a smug navel-gazer, he can’t even see
the “Brazilian” woman he’s been dating (Raven Gar-
cia, left) is really a fair-skinned black woman with a
phony accent and a good hair style. The play always
seems to be about to get rolling, and it whets your
appetite for Act 2.
And that’s when things go swiftly to hell.
Nottage’s at-first sophisticated and thoughtful
glimpse of black Hollywood devolved into an over-
the-top, not-very-funny sitcom that’s overplayed so
appallingly, you keep expecting the script to reveal
it’s all a put-on. But that never happens. Whereas
Act 1 takes place entirely within a week in 1933, Act
2 is set decades later at a symposium dedicated to
analyzing the films of the now-respected pioneer
Vera Stark. With “clips” from her final TV appearance
on an annoying 1973 talk show, a panel of film and
race experts pontificate about who Vera really was,
why she eventually disappeared and what her real
legacy was.
It could be the hand of the director, Bruce R.
Coleman, or the actors, but it feels like the blame for
the disastrous turn it takes lies primarily with Not-
tage. After making cogent, subtie arguments about
the shadow of racism and the limits of ambition in
the first half, in the second she turns her guns on
everyone: On pompous African-American academ-
ics who argue with pretentious jargon about side is-
sues while missing what’s in front of their eyes; on
the blinders modern-day viewers allow themselves
to wear when watching older movies under the guise
of “it was another time;” on black women who man-
age to “pass” for white and ignore their true heritage;
on the frivolity of celebrity culture; and on Vera her-
self, who seems to be some kind of combination of
Hattie McDaniel, Eartha Kitt, Dorothy Dandridge and
Lola Falana. It’s simply all over the place. (Nottage’s
history is likewise a jumble, with sloppy, inaccurate
“lessons” about pre-code films, the Academy Awards
and more.)
The actors all do good work in Act 1 (especially
Jamison, Williams and Stormy Demerson as Vera’s
saucy best friend), but by the end, they’ve all been
strangled by Nottage’s heavy hand. A smart,
poignant tale implodes due to excess and poor judg-
ment, made all the more disappointing because it
had such promise.
— Arnold Wayne Jones
Theatre 3,2800 Routh St. in the Quadrangle.
Through July 13. Theatre3Dallas.com.
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06.27.14 dallasvoice 27
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Nash, Tammye. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, June 27, 2014, newspaper, June 27, 2014; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth706843/m1/27/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.