** I must tell you that I was pretty excited to see Lynn Nottage’s “By The Way, Meet Vera Stark” last night. This satirical look at the film industry dealing with the racial issue of the industry had an interesting story to tell. The story takes place in the 1930’s when there were very few parts for people of color except as servants and perhaps “bad guys”. Directed by Risha Tenae this play is a combination of theater and film and was a lot longer than anticipated.

The story begins as we meet the aging movie star, Gloria ( played to perfection by Caitlin Jemison) and her maid, Vera ( a dynamic portrayal by Ashayla Calvin). Vera wants to have a career in films, but the roles being offered during this period are only secondary. During the opening scenes we learn a great deal about these women and their relationship. We also learn about the industry at that time. While the story centers on Vera, there are two other African American females (Justice Ford and MarieAnge Louis-Jean ) taking on roles as both actresses ( in the first act) and lecturers/authors in the second act.

Let me explain how the acts work. The first act sets the tone of the time and leads us to a director ( Dan Evashevski) who comes up with a film “The Belle of New Orleans” that will change the industry, and will make Vera Stark a star. The act is funny and allows us to get a true lesson of what was happening at that time. The play runs smoothly during the first act which was almost 90 minutes in length and felt like a play with a story that made sense.

The second act takes place many years later and is more like a lecture hall where we have a host (Bryant Hindsman, who in act one was another want-to-be actor) and two authors/lecturers ( played byLouis-Jean and Ms Ford) as they look at the life of Ms Stark and her last filmed interview with Brad Donovan ( Martin Holt). This is done after a 14 minute film segment in black and white, of course and then we have snippets of other scenes done on a stage behind a scrim with our three hosts in front. The set (Kevin Hagan) and props (Randy Rozier) were well done as were the costumes (Rachel Lambert).

While I was quite impressed with the first act and the quality of the performances by all six of the cast members, I felt that the second act was somewhat tedious and probably brought to much to the table. The story itself is one that merits attention and I am sure is modeled after the time itself in an industry that still has some problems with the race issue.

“By The Way,Meet Vera Stark” will continue thru- Nov 17th with performances as follows: