Lyric Stage's "On the Town": Carried Away

It was 1944, and the country was understandably focused on the ongoing war overseas. It was no wonder that a new musical that told the tale of three sailors on leave for just twenty-four hours in New York City, just before they were to ship out for the battlegrounds, was seen as an unusual, even odd, idea for an evening’s entertainment. It was the first Broadway venture by three of its creators, with the book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and music by Leonard Bernstein. Only its choreographer, Jerome Robbins, had been tested on the Great White Way before. With only ten days for an out-of-town tryout, it opened in New York to mixed reviews. It suffered a bit from its threadbare plot but the original concept and execution were transformative for its time; in fact, although the show was truly ahead of its time, it ran just over a year (almost 500 performances) in its first production, with disappointingly brief runs in two subsequent major revivals on Broadway. It was hailed as primarily a dance show, and rightly so, since it was not only based on an original ballet and concept by Robbins (“Fancy Free”) but contained more dance numbers than the more typical Broadway musicals. (Bernstein recycled some of the music for his later work for the “Conga” number in the much more successful “Wonderful Town”). Typically for Hollywood, the film version in 1949 used only five of original creators’ almost two dozen numbers, adding six others not written by them. Thus, if you’ve never seen a live performance, you’ve never really seen “On the Town”, and do you ever have a treat in store for you.

Beg, borrow, go AWOL if necessary, to get tickets to this, Lyric Stage Company’s triumphant finale to its season, for it’s the “On the Town” you should’ve seen. This production is superbly directed by Lyric’s Producing Artistic Director Spiro Veloudos, with wonderful, amazing choreography and musical staging by Ilyse Robbins (the latter fully living up to that famous last name, though no relation), who has even choreographed the set changes. From the moment that those three sailors, Chip (Phil Tayler), Ozzie (Zachary Eisenstat) and Gabey (John Ambrosino) spring onto the stage, it’s becomes clear that this is the definitive version. It’s not long before each meets his ideal mate, respectively taxi driver Hildy (Michele A. DeLuca), anthropologist Claire de Loon (Aimee Doherty), and Ivy (Lauren Gemelli). All are individually and collectively superb. Also in the cast are Madame Dilly (Sarah deLima), Judge Pitkin (J. T. Turner) and Lucy (Ilyse Robbins) heading up a terrific ensemble including Lenni Kmiec, Rishi Basu, Kayla Bryan, Lisa Dempsey, Jeremy Towle, Daniel Forest Sullivan, Ceit M. Zweil, Maurice Emmanuel Parent, Christina English, Caleb Dane Horst, Pim van Amerongen and Cameron Benda. The Scenic Design by Janie E. Howland is just right, as is the Lighting Design by Scott Clyve, the extremely clever Projection Design by Seaghan McKay, and carefully chosen Costume Design by Kathleen Doyle. The Musical Direction by Jonathan Goldberg hits all the right notes and, miraculously, the nine piece orchestra never drowns out the glorious singing, especially by Ambrosino, and perfectly accompanies the astoundingly athletic dancing by Eisenstat. Mention should also be made of the hilarious work of DeLuca and Tayler, and the screwball comedy of Doherty, whose versatility apparently knows no bounds. They manage to stand out in an impressive troupe of twenty-one, sometimes seeming like the proverbial cast of thousands.

“On the Town” never had enough time to fix some of the problems with its second act, where Comden and Green run out of steam and start repeating themselves. Still, with a great but mostly unfamiliar score including funny numbers such as “I Can Cook Too”, “Carried Away”, and “Subway Ride”, plaintive ones such as “Lonely Town”and uplifting ones such as“Lucky to Be Me”, and of course the iconic “New York, New York”, Veloudos’ endless array of hilarious touches and tweaking, and choreography that’s irresistible, this is truly a worthy humdinger of an ending to Lyric Stage’s season. It wouldn’t be much of a spoiler, given the story’s time frame of a single day, to state that the ending is one of the most poignant ever conceived. The three male leads, having had such a brief spell of exuberance and joy, face an uncertain fate. In a final quartet, we hear the lament of time’s passing and hopes for the future, in the hauntingly beautiful, heartbreakingly bittersweet ballad, “Some Other Time”. Consider the lyrics: “When you’re in love, time is precious stuff; even a lifetime isn’t enough…but let’s be glad for what we’ve had and what’s to come”. What’s to come for these three, we’ll never know; neither will the final twist be revealed here, as life evolves (and revolves) in a cycle. You won’t be able to resist being carried away.

SpeakEasy's "In the Heights": You Want Salsa with That?

Note: The following should not be read as an actual review of this production, as a random mechanical error involving the dimmer rack caused the lighting board to shut down twice. Thus theatergoers familiar with SpeakEasy's history of musicals ("Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" this season, and "Xanadu", "The Adding Machine", and countless others) would be wise to purchase tickets based on those experiences.

SpeakEasy Stage Company’s final production for the season is “In the Heights”, the 2008 Tony Award winner for Best Musical (as well as Best Score, Orchestrations and Choreography, after a total of thirteen nominations). It was also a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, and won a Grammy Award to boot. With music, lyrics and original conception by Lin-Manuel Miranda (who also starred in the New York version) and book by Quiara Alegria Hudes, it was a revelation: a hit musical (running almost three years on Broadway after five months off-Broadway) composed of hip hop, rap and salsa. “West Side Story” it’s not, and yet that’s the musical that this one most closely resembles both in soaring spirits and even higher kicks. From the first few notes delivered by the play’s hero, Usnavi (Diego Klock-Perez), it’s clear we’re not in Kansas anymore. But fear not. Even if rap isn’t your bag, you’ll be won over by the music, the lyrics and especially the dancing.

It’s July 3^rd and there’s a record heat wave in the hood, New York City’s Washington Heights, a close-knit Latino community. There are four businesses on view. The bodega owned by Usnavi is opening for the day, as he dreams of returning someday to his home in the Dominican Republic with his adopted Abuela (Grandmother) Claudia (Carolyn Saxon) who has raised him. His cousin Sonny (Jorge Barranco) helps with the store and his friend Benny (Jared Dixon) drops by. Usnavi’s girlfriend Vanessa (Alessandra Valea) works along with Carla (Jasmine Knight) in the nearby beauty salon owned by Daniela (Merissa Haddad). Another storefront is a taxi business owned by Kevin (Tony Castellanos) and Camila (Nicole Paloma Sarro), whose daughter Nina (Santina Umbach) has just arrived from her first year in college.The fourth business is a cart driven by “Piragua (shaved ice) Guy” (Anthony Alfaro). As the heat wears on, we discover all’s not well in the Heights. Not only does Usnavi long for his ancestral island, but Vanessa wants to move to the West Village; Nina almost flunked out of college, and her parents Kevin and Camila need a quick loan; Daniela’s rent increases so high she has to move the salon to the Bronx, and Benny needs a job and a girl. Has there ever been a musical in such communal need of a true bochinche (ruckus) to shake things up?

There won’t be a quiz, and suffice it to say that things will get worse before they get better, but since this is a musical comedy, things will and do. In this incarnation, helmed by Director Paul Daigneault and Choreographer Larry Sousa, there’s never any doubt. And the cast has managed to balance the various dilemmas with an infectious energy. There are a couple of dozen numbers in the show, which doesn’t begin to tell the backstory: Miranda wrote some sixty songs for the work that never saw the light of Broadway. Amazingly, even the minor character Piragua Guy gets a solo (and a reprise to boot) for as Miranda put it, he deserves one, as he too has his story to tell. Once the initial shock of the opening rap number subsides, it comes as a relief that the rest of the score is more lyrical than one dared hope, full of wisdom and whimsy, continually advancing the central sweet story of a family of neighbors in various crises. It’s a somewhat (you should perdone the expression) white-washed tale told more in song than in grit by the principals and the entire ensemble. In addition to the featured players named above, the cast consists of Christian Denzel Bufford, Sarah Crane, Lauren Csete, Sean Jones, Melanie Porras, Chris Ramirez, and Adrian Ruz.

When singing, dancing, direction, and choreography come together seamlessly, it’s maravilloso, as was the case with the Broadway original, with the added fascination of seeing composer/lyricist  Miranda perform his own material from his own life. Anticipation was high for experiencing a local troupe’s take on the story. Unfortunately, technical glitches during the opening performance prevented an accurate assessment. The sound balance between the eight piece band and the singers (even though the latter were amplified) was distorted to the extent that one who was unfamiliar with the score could easily have missed some truly essential plot points. Some of the costuming was unflattering to say the least, and annoyingly distracting. Worse, the lighting system broke down, producing some weird out of body experiences, several times bringing up the house lights.The cast is to be commended for soldiering on. Given the technical disaster, it’s impossible, and even unfair, to comment on any of the performances.

Sometimes the magic of live theater succumbs to the pitfalls of live theater. Still, given the excellent track record of SpeakEasy’s Daigneault in staging musicals, theatergoers who haven’t seen this work should feel confident in deciding to attend; surely there’s gold in them there heights.

URT's "Distracted": Attention Must Be Paid

Underground Railway Theater’s current offering of Lisa Loomer’s 2007 comedy “Distracted” is a virtually flawless production of a far from flawless uni-polar (that is, manic) play. Central to the story is the journey of one mother (Stacy Fischer) from denial to despair, with several disturbing detours, as she grapples with a common problem faced by contemporary parents. Her nine year old son Jesse (Brandon Barbosa, at the opening night performance) may have ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, or as it is more widely known, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; the operative word here is “Hyperactivity”, a state shared by young Jesse and by the play itself.

We don’t get to see Jesse for most of the play, for, as Mama puts it in the first of many fourth-wall-breaking addresses to the audience, “I don’t think the stage is a particularly healthy place for a child; besides, people only want to see a child on stage if he’s singing show tunes”. We do, however, hear a great deal from him, as his frequent tirades threaten to destroy any hope of peace and quiet for his family, his school and his neighborhood. Before the evening is over, we’ll also hear from a number of mostly well-meaning friends and professionals, every last one of them burdened with her or his own personal baggage and consequent “solutions”. But just as there is no objective way of arriving at a diagnosis (rather, a subjective analysis of a checklist of indicators), there is no real cure, merely various treatments, ranging from the benign to the bizarre, from behavior modification to medication, that only address the symptoms.

Along the way, there is, incidentally, no pretense at maintaining that fourth wall; there’s really no wall at all. This theatrical device is nothing new, as demonstrated elsewhere this season in such works as “The Skin of Our Teeth” and “M”, but Loomer carries it to its illogical extreme. At one point, one doctor hopes Jesse “someday might be able to get a PhD and help others, or play a person with a PhD who helps others”; the same actor laments that without his own Ritalin he wouldn’t be able to memorize his lines. At another point, Dad (Nael Nacer) asks if anyone is listening, to which Mama responds, indicating the audience, “They are”, but Dad insists we’re all absorbed with our own problems. Meanwhile he asks “can’t a boy be a boy anymore?”, while Mama’s question is “would Ritalin get him a friend to sit with at lunch?…would Ritalin be a better mother than I am?”

In the end, Loomer has written a wildly hysterical (in both senses of the term) skewering of the medical world’s panoply of so-called experts, while providing some memorable opportunities for actors to engage us, and, under Wesley Savick‘s fine direction, this cast really delivers. Fischer has by far the meatiest role, and she’s great in it, as is Nacer (markedly different from his roles this season in “Kite Runner” and “Lungs”, a truly versatile performer). The supporting cast, every one of them side-splittingly funny, includes neighbors like Sherry (Kerry A. Dowling), her daughter Natalie (Katie Elinoff), and Vera (April Pressel), and various clinicians including Dr. Zavala (Debra Wise),
Drs. Broder, Jinx, and Karnes (Steven Barkhimer), and Dr. Waller and others (Michelle Dowd). The technical credits are outstanding, from the Scenic Design by Sara Brown to the Costume Design by Gail Astrid Buckley to the Sound Design by David Remedios. Special note should be made of the Lighting Design and Projections by Bozkurt Karasu, which are often, uh, distracting. (But, as Jesse might put it, doh, isn’t that the point?). The sole negative element in this production is the performing space, between two opposite seating areas, with the same problems theater-in-the-round has, here exacerbated since there is considerable direct engagement with the audience.

When all is said and done, we the audience, even with our limited attention spans, are treated to a blisteringly comical ride full of wit and insight. Less of a coherent play than a series of vignettes that are, in both the theatrical and medical senses, at best anecdotal, this work is nonetheless a wise and wacky mirror of our overly medicated age. If there’s closure in this work, it’s probably the awareness that what kids (and, by extension, all of us) need is attention.

New Rep's "Amadeus": For the Love of God

On the day after the horrific events surrounding this year‘s Boston Marathon finally found some closure, two local college productions resumed their schedules for the musical version of “Two Gentlemen of Verona” and the Mozart opera “La Clemenza di Tito” (both memorable, as is often the case in our culturally blessed city). Attendance at both necessitated a walk past one crime scene, Boylston Street, and its memorial to those killed and injured. Nearby, two women and a little girl held signs reading “Free Hugs”, a simple but moving response to the tragedy. Not to sound too maudlin, but one was reminded of how therapeutic theatre can be. Yet another reminder, blocks from a related crime scene in Watertown, occurred at the opening of New Rep’s production of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play “Amadeus”, (Mozart’s middle name “Theophilus” translated into the Latin form he preferred, meaning “God’s love”), a work that celebrates the human and the divine in the process of creation. The final work of this stellar season, it became part of a larger transition to normalcy and much needed healing.

The original New York production, substantially rewritten after its London premiere, was the winner of no fewer than seven Tony Awards including Best Play. The 1984 film version won eight Academy Awards as well as a place in the American Film Institute’s list of the best hundred films ever made. With such a pedigree, the story of the renowned composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (here well played by Tim Spears as a boorish prodigy) and his nemesis Antonio Salieri (masterfully played by Benjamin Evett), an inferior composer, was a brilliant choice for the company and its Artistic Director Jim Petosa, who directs this version impeccably. This work by Shaffer (also known for “Equus” and “Royal Hunt of the Sun”) is a highly literate, witty and amusing near masterpiece. Its final version made Salieri less of an observer and more at the center of his rival’s ruin. As those who have seen the play or film will recall, the action takes place in Vienna in 1823, with flashbacks to the decade 1781-1791. It concerns the efforts of a hapless Mozart to obtain more gainful employment in a number of official openings, most of which are sabotaged behind his back by the jealous Salieri. The intrigues perpetrated by Salieri grow more and more vicious and dangerous. Even the debuts of some of Mozart’s greatest works (“The Abduction from the Seraglio”, “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Don Giovanni” and most of all “The Magic Flute”) weren’t enough to gain him his elusive fortune, given Salieri’s tactics, part of his “war with God and His preferred Creature, Mozart…in the waging of which, of course, the Creature had to be destroyed”. Shaffer shows how Mozart’s view of his father Leopold evolved from the accusing figure of the Commendatore in “Don Giovanni” to the more loving, embracing Sarastro of “Magic Flute”, all the while ignorant of the assassin in his midst. Salieri’s final blow is convincing Mozart to betray the Masonic Order’s most secret rituals. While this is Shaffer’s fictionalized version, it provides great opportunities for displaying acting chops.

Salieri’s machinations involve Mozart’s wife Constanze Weber (McCaela Donovan, delectably complex), Count von Strack, Groom of the Imperial Chamber (Paul D. Farwell), the Kapellmesiter Bonno (Mark Soucy), Emperor Joseph II (Russell Garrett), Baron van Swieten, Prefect of the Imperial Library (Evan Sanderson), Count Orsini-Rosenberg, Director of the Imperial Opera (Jeffries Thaiss), Teresa Salieri (Emily Culver), Katherina (Esme Allen), the Cook (John Geoffrion), Salieri’s Valet (Nathaniel Gundy), the “Venticelli”, a gossipy Greek chorus (Michael Kaye and Paula Langton), and Gabriel Rodriguez (Ensemble). This large cast of fifteen is uniformly wonderful, especially Evett as the scheming anti-hero, in a performance that would exhaust a thesaurus of positive adjectives; it’s the role of a lifetime, and he is amazingly, breathtakingly flawless. The technical credits are up to New Rep’s estimable standards, from the strikingly beautiful Scenic Design by Cristina Todesco, to the beautiful Costume Design by Frances Nelson McSherry, to the intricate Lighting Design by Mary Ellen Stebbins and the impressive Sound Design by David Remedios. It’s a triumphal voyage with Petosa at the helm.

Salieri, at first seemingly triumphant in achieving his immediate goals, realizes his own fame is an embalmment for work he himself considers absolutely worthless, his sentence being “thirty years of being called ‘distinguished’ by people incapable of distinguishing”. While he stated early in life that it was “only through hearing music that I know God exists; only through writing music that I could worship”, his envy drove him to destroy a far superior creation. Yet even he sees the tragic in his triumph, realizing it is short-lived, that “Mozart’s music sounds louder and louder through the world, and mine faded completely, till no one played it at all”, moaning that he “must survive to see myself become extinct”. His unforgiving rage is directed against the God who, in total unfairness, created him mediocre. In the end, he confronts the audience: “Mediocrities everywhere now and to come: I absolve you all! Amen”. Whether or not you require absolution, you should make a pilgrimage to this wonderful resurrection of a marvelous play, if only for its power to transport theatergoers to a higher plane. In a year that began with the terrific “Kite Runner”, this is the perfect bookend to a very satisfying season. This production is so divine, it borders on the infallible.

Huntington Theater: Dial "M" for Mayhem

Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated production of the season was a world premiere, Huntington Theater Company’s “M”, local luminary Ryan Landry’s take on Fritz Lang’s classic film. Those familiar with the source material, the film noir about a serial child killer, wondered how this could possibly serve as a basis for the sort of madcap comedy for which Landry is famous in Boston. The announcement that yet another local legend, Karen MacDonald, would be playing the title role, originally enacted by none other than Peter Lorre, only added fuel to the fire. Landry’s considerable fan base was fascinated at both the possibilities and potential pitfalls inherent in his access to a much larger venue, a much more conservative audience and a notably larger budget. They needn’t have worried; what has emerged is a somewhat schizophrenic amalgam of elements, which will be appealing to some and appalling to others. Whatever an individual theatergoer’s response is, this is undeniably a wild and wacky demonstration of what happens when a brilliant mind is given the keys to the candy store. Hands down, this is the most creative work seen on a Boston stage this season.

When the curtain raises, we’re informed that we’re about to see a “dramedy”, and that eight victims have already been killed. Several other murders subsequently occur, but by the end of the evening it’s quite clear what has survived the mayhem: vaudeville is certainly not dead. Without divulging too many of the endless sight gags and sly allusions, suffice it to say that in the space of what is described as “90-ish” minutes, Landry manages to skewer the musical “Annie”, the music from “Psycho”, Mickey Mouse, “Hansel and Gretel”, Dick Tracy, "Raisin in the Sun" and just about every slapstick routine and device except for a whoopee cushion. What should be essential preparation for seeing this work is viewing the original film (since Landry continually references it), which Huntington Theater has helpfully provided on its website. Meanwhile, Landry not only breaks down the theatrical fourth wall, he demolishes it, once too often, as though it was a novelty and one had never heard of Ionesco, much of absurdist theater, or even Woody Allen’s “Purple Rose of Cairo”. The humor is intentionally sophomoric, scatological and vulgar. Whether one enjoys this sort of thing will depend on one’s love (or lack thereof) of farce and puerile screwball comedy. At the opening night performance, about half of the audience (including this critic) seemed uninvolved most of the time, while the rest of the audience was convulsed with hysterical laughter. Ryan thus would appear to have succeeded at conjuring up a controversial piece of theater.

The choice of Karen MacDonald at first looks controversial too, as she has little to do for most of the play but skulk and whistle, but in the work’s final scene she comes into her own, superbly channeling the Peter Lorre performance (especially the one reenacted by him in the French version of the film). The rest of the cast, including The Woman (Ellen Adair), The Man (Paul Melendy), The Pig (Larry Coen), Fritz (David Drake), Schlitz (Laura Latreille) and Olga (Samantha Richert) are all adept at scenery chewing. The Little Girl (alternating Eva Jean Chapuran & Ava Rose Cooke) is seen briefly. Most of the cast portray other roles as well, including that of a critic, wherein Landry delivers some preemptive strikes in the likely event that his play might not be universally acclaimed. As directed by Caitlin Lowans, the cast appears to be having the bulk of the evening’s fun, joyfully digesting the amazingly clever scenery by Jon Savage. The Costume Design by Scott Martino, Lighting Design by Deb Sullivan, Music and Sound Design by David Remedios and the Puppetry Direction by Roxanna Myhrum are all marvelous to behold. Special mention should be made of the Projections Design by Garrett Herzig, so perfect it makes one believe there should be an award category for this technology.

In the end, there is a lot of both magic and mystery in this production, which is a noble effort all around. If your cup of tea is the likes of Lucille Ball, Milton Berle and a Hasty Pudding show, this will be just your (tea) bag. If not, fair warning: Ryan Landry, as usual, takes no prisoners.

New Rep's "Master Class": Having a Look

If you’ve lived your whole life for opera, or if you’ve lived your whole life without it, you owe it to yourself to see Terrence McNally’s play “Master Class”, itself a masterpiece of wit, wisdom and warmth. The winner of the 1996 Tony Award as Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Best New Play, it was a tribute to the memory of his beloved La Divina, Maria Callas, as well as a vehicle for a star turn by a series of notable theatrical divas in various productions over the years. It was also, in the guise of a master class on operatic singing and technique, a window into the process of the making of art. In New Rep’s current production, in the masterful hands of Director Antonio Ocampo-Guzman, it is all of this and more. It’s heartbreaking and hilarious, an uncanny portrayal of a larger-then-life legend.

But warmth, from Maria Callas; surely that’s an oxymoron? Ah, the clever playwright knows his subject, the tempestuous soprano, through and through, and not just from her often notorious interviews, her visible battles with operatic moguls and her famous recordings. He actually attended several master classes she conducted, and has distilled his experience into a tight, illuminating and cleverly revealing study of the untold price of art. In her own words in the play, Maria (a spectacularly flawless Amelia Broome) stresses the essential need for an aspiring artist’s having a distinctive personal visual presence. She speaks of a student, Sophie, (Erica Spyres) about to perform, as “our first victim; a little joke”. She asks, or rather demands, that the soprano “Act, no. Feel. Be.” To a second soprano, Sharon (Lindsay Conrad), she commands that she “Enter…anyone can stand there and sing. An artist enters and is.” Later she reiterates that “an entrance is how we present ourselves in life”, making it quite clear that she considers us all as members of the class. To a third student, a tenor, Tony (Darren T. Anderson) she intones that he should be aware of his “bella figura”: “a singer has to know his assets”. To all of the assembled class, (and that would include us) she declares that we must be unique and distinctive in how we present ourselves; we must all have “a…look”.

Throughout the class, self-described as “the absolute center of the universe right now”, she dominates not only her hopeful students but also her accompanist Manny (Brendon Shapiro), whom she feels also lacks that distinctive “look”, and a stagehand (Michael Caminiti). In her own view, she is incomparable (“How can you have rivals when no one else can do what you can do?”). While claiming it’s not about her, we (and she) know that it’s all about her: “You have to be like a sponge. Absorb. Absorb…This isn’t just an opera, this is your life”. Broome dominates the stage, as Callas surely did, but she is surrounded by a stellar cast, as one by one they endure her exacting standards. Spyre’s portrayal of a promising singer yet to learn how to extrapolate life’s lessons into musical feeling, Anderson’s cocky but unsure tenor with an ignorance of what he is singing about, and Conrad’s initially nervous but ultimately challenging hopeful, are all up to the task, as are the two actors in the smaller roles, Shapiro and Caminiti. Every one of them has clearly studied this piece in depth; their efforts reward us.

Special mention should be made of the amazing Set Design by John Traub; simple but stunning, it makes what could have been a rather boring rehearsal stage into a versatile wonder. Given Callas’ emphasis on having one’s own look, Stacey Stevens’ Costume Design is perfection itself, as are Chris Brusberg’s Lighting Design and David Reiffel’s Sound Design. All of their expertise reflects the collaboration between Broome and Ocampo-Guzman who have recreated a legend for the ages, one who inspires as much as she instructs, and whose presence among us for just under two hours could stand as a master class in acting and direction when they perfectly intersect, as they do here. Their Callas is a teacher whose life is itself a learning experience for all who would assume the awesome task of artistic creation.

This master teacher speaks not only to her “victims” but to all of us when she declares: “You must know what you want to do in life, you must decide, for we cannot do everything…what matters is that you use whatever you have learned wisely…the only thanks I ask is that you sing properly and honestly. If you do this, I will feel repaid. Well, that’s that”. That’s that, indeed; although, in a sense, that’s only the beginning. What we learn about the legendary artist, with all her flaws and vulnerability, with all her brilliance and mastery of her art, could fill volumes. And as she would put it: “But that’s another story”.

Lyric Stage's "By the Way...": In Vera Veritas

Lyric Stage Company’s current offering of “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark”, by Lynn Nottage (2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for “Ruined”) is full of truths (though those truths aren’t always immediately apparent). The comedy is based on an enticing story about an aspiring black actress in Hollywood in the 30’s, her subsequent career (some forty years later), and the focus of a 2003 seminar on the impact and meaning of her professional life. Off-Broadway, it earned a 2011 Drama Desk nomination for outstanding play. It’s a great vehicle for a quartet of talented actresses, as well as a golden opportunity for creative multi-media expertise. Fortunately, the cast and crew of this production rise to the occasion. From the moment the audience enters the theater, the illusion of Vera Stark as an actual film star is cleverly illustrated with stills and clips from her supposed filmography. In this prologue, as well as in other filmed and projected interludes between scenes, Film & Media Designer Johnathan Carr and Sound Designer Edward Young are particularly outstanding.

The bumpy voyage from obscurity to fame is shared by the future Mary Pickford-like “America’s Little Sweetie Pie” Gloria Mitchell (Hannah Husband), her maid in real and reel life, Vera Stark (Kami Rushell Smith), and Vera’s friends Lottie (Lyndsay Allyn Cox) and Anna Mae (Kris Sidberry). All perceive the making of the “Gone-with-the-Wind”-like “The Belle of New Orleans” as their possible springboard to more roles, celebrity and riches. They’ll stoop to anything to capture a part in the proposed epic to be helmed by Maximillian von Oster (Gregory Balla) and produced by movie mogul Mr. Slasvick (Kelby T. Akin), even when it requires mimicking the obsequious slave caricatures that these powerful white men envision. Ironically, it’s the latter roles written by the playwright for white actors, as well as the two additional roles played by Akin and Balla (respectively, Brad, a very fatuous Merv Griffin-like television host and one of his guests, Peter, a Mick Jagger-like spaced-out rocker) that come across as stereotypes. And, if you’ve noticed a lot of “-likes” herein, it’s obvious that the intent of the playwright is to parodize a number of Hollywood clichés. Even the final seminar led by Herb (Terrell Donnell Sledge) and abetted by researcher Carmen (Cox) and political activist Afua (Sidberry) manages to prolong the parody. The four actress roles are better written, as is that of Vera’s suitor and first husband Leroy (Sledge).

Director Summer L. Williams does what she can with this imbalance of fleshed-out and cardboard characters, aided by the stylish Scenic Design of David Towlun, Costume Design Tyler Kinney and Lighting Design by Franklin Meissner, Jr. But the play’s strengths (primarily in confronting us with the historical limitations imposed upon actors of color for far too long a period) may not be enough of a payoff for some theatergoers who might be put off by several cartoon-like portrayals and scenes in need of trimming and tightening.

For those willing to put up with a number of flawed elements, there is rewarding insight into the barriers that existed then (and persist today, if truth be told, if not perhaps as blatantly). There are some hilarious lines, such as Lottie’s remark about the black roles in “Belle of New Orleans” (“Slaves with lines?”) or Gloria’s self-obsessed observations (“It’s exhausting to be this fabulous”). And there’s the fundamental truth that Vera herself reveals in her televised meltdown (“Tonight I’ve crossed the bridge, and there’s no going back”), which will come as no enormous surprise if you’ve been paying attention. This work is a window into a world too many of us chose to be oblivious to, through a glass starkly, despite the evidence right there on the silver screen. “By the way”, indeed.