Penumbra's 'Vera Stark' looks at race and roles in Hollywood

Director Lou Bellamy is known for putting characters onstage at Penumbra Theatre who are honorable, no matter their social status.

Sometimes, he tamps down the humor in a show if he thinks it would come at the expense of characters.

So, it is surprising to derive so much joy, and to find oneself laughing so much, during his production of "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark." Could this crackling comedy really be at Penumbra, the nation's pre-eminent playhouse for work by African-Americans?

But we need not worry. Those onstage in Lynn Nottage's artful play keep their dignity as we laugh, along with them, about the many masks that people wear.

"Vera" is set in two eras — the Depression, when the best roles for black actors in Hollywood were as maids and servants, and the early 1970s, the wake of the civil rights liberation. In the first act, aspiring actor Vera (Crystal Fox) is trying to get a role in a "Gone with the Wind"-style Southern epic.

Vera, who rooms with Lottie (Greta Oglesby) and Anna Mae (Jamila Anderson), has hitched her star to movie star Gloria Mitchell (Norah Long). Vera and Gloria have deep history in a Hollywood milieu that is all appearance and image.

In the slower second act, a panel discussion reviews Vera's life, playing excerpts from her performance in the film, which launched and defined her long career, and from a Dick Cavett-style TV interview, enacted live (Peter Moore plays TV host Brad Donovan).

Fox has good chemistry with Long, whose Gloria has a limited range and lots of secrets. Long's dramatic sighs and drinking tell us all we need to know about the contradictions and limitations of being known as "America's sweetheart."

Oglesby's Lottie has thwarted acting dreams, but when she delivers Juliet's death scene from "Romeo and Juliet," we can see into her talent, and her pain. Anderson's Anna Mae subsumes everything to her ambition. She has a hunger for success in a caste system that would punish her for the African blood that is a part of her heritage.

Kevin West, who plays chauffeur and musician Leroy Barksdale in the first act, delivers a memorable trumpet solo. Paul de Cordova is strongly convincing as director Max Von Oster, a man of well-meaning prejudice, and as groovy 1970s British rocker Peter Rhys-Davies.

This "Vera Stark" sharply frames the playwright's intelligent wit. More than anything, Bellamy's staging, which takes place on Lance Brockman's tidy set and is amplified by Martin Gwinup's video design and Mathew LeFebvre's costumes, offers insight into the types of roles people must play to succeed in Hollywood and in this American life.