The first act of Stark is a mad-cap send-up of black cliques, satirizing Tinsel Town and its continued quest to sell audiences on its primitive reality. The second act provides a Clybourne Park twist, going full-on meta, complete with crafty technical choices while mixing mediums in a presentation of how time and society have regarded both Gloria and Vera. While the success of the change-over is mixed, its merits are extremely high. The versatile group of actors return mostly recast in new roles in a deconstruction of race and gender, specifically black women. There’s even a secret revealed that isn’t so much a surprise, but adds thematic support.
The cast plays off each other musically, as their spoken words are more like songs. Merle Dandridge as Anna Mae’s social-climber is a firecracker and Kimberly Hébert Gregory’s Lottie, a heavyset actress who has been in the business long enough to have tired of all the games, is dynamite. Detmer as the temperamental, lazy, struggling starlet hoping to regain her mantle of “America’s “sweetie pie” is a card. The men are given a chance to have some fun of their own, offering technically diverse characterizations from Spencer Garrett and Mather Zickel, accents and all. The chemistry, especially between Lathan and Kevin T. Carroll (who plays Vera’s love interest Leroy) is palpable. And it’s film and TV actress Lathan who holds the whole venture together with her tough and hungry Vera. The grand set pieces including a soundstage and Gloria’s setting room adorned with a chandelier and full ornate bar are interchanged inventively between the carefully orchestrated scene changes with an eye for the visual. ESosa’s costumes are exquisite including some eye-popping gowns.
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| Sanaa Lathan reprises her role of Vera Stark |
Some of the second act roles are talking-head cartoons presenting matters of import. Yet, the play encourages the viewer to look passed their one-dimensional surfaces, and examine their baggage, not ignoring that the whole circus is quite cyclical. The present-day nuances aren’t always discernible. Stark is all about the double edged sword of pushing the envelope while subscribing to the rules: getting your truth out in the open in an albeit limited and predesignated capacity in a world where the ruling race self-satisfyingly appropriates style and art from the groups it oppresses. How even a “progressed” society that has self-congratulatingly moved beyond the ills of its past, unknowingly discloses its shortcomings and bloated perceptions of its gains by over-romanticizing bygone (and current) eras. One second act panel member asserts that “Vera breathed life into aged stereotypes”; the actress herself shares that her work was both her “shame and my glory.” We all pay a price for success, but we can still choose how we color in the details on the way up. One character comments that Vera’s eventual choices and contributions to society were both “problematic and indelible.”
Hollywood, in general, especially today, has limited its interests to straight white males and very little has changed over the years, with the exception of examples like Will Smith and Denzel Washington, bringing to light the state of black women in Hollywood 2013. Angela Bassett has come and gone, and even Halle Berry is left working on the fumes of her Best Actress get from a decade ago, bringing to the forefront Viola Davis. Last year’s The Help begs the question just how far have we come when in the 2010s, the best we can do is an actress injecting all the humanity she can muster into the role of a maid in 1960s so mainstream America can self-righteously pat itself on the back for doing nothing. In Stark’s Hollywood, one character may refer to the recent movie’s Civil Right’s backdrop as “wallpaper.” The juxtaposition is ironic and Jo Bonney’s smart direction brings it all home. The play confesses that we’re all products of our time, but we have the choice not only with how we deal with our present, but what lens we use to judge the past. Please, by all mean, do yourself a favor and Meet Vera Stark. You can start by going here.
Hollywood, in general, especially today, has limited its interests to straight white males and very little has changed over the years, with the exception of examples like Will Smith and Denzel Washington, bringing to light the state of black women in Hollywood 2013. Angela Bassett has come and gone, and even Halle Berry is left working on the fumes of her Best Actress get from a decade ago, bringing to the forefront Viola Davis. Last year’s The Help begs the question just how far have we come when in the 2010s, the best we can do is an actress injecting all the humanity she can muster into the role of a maid in 1960s so mainstream America can self-righteously pat itself on the back for doing nothing. In Stark’s Hollywood, one character may refer to the recent movie’s Civil Right’s backdrop as “wallpaper.” The juxtaposition is ironic and Jo Bonney’s smart direction brings it all home. The play confesses that we’re all products of our time, but we have the choice not only with how we deal with our present, but what lens we use to judge the past. Please, by all mean, do yourself a favor and Meet Vera Stark. You can start by going here.
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