Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...The problem with director Chuck Smith's uncharacteristically flat production is not difficult to describe. With the exception of portions of the first act, nothing you see on stage is ever fully believable. Most everything falls in that dangerous no-man's land between satire and truth, and thus you find yourself disappointingly uninvolved with Vera (played by Tamberla Perry), an actress who fights her way into the unfriendly confines of Hollywood, only to end up - well, let's not spoil the revelation of her fate."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Nottage's play is not always as subtle as it might be, and it definitely would have benefitted from a good trim. But it is a terrific social comedy, and the Goodman cast (and the show's large team of designers), have done wonderful work."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...In short, the last half of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is an awful mess. This is exactly what they mean in the old backstage movies when they talk about "second act troubles": a show with a killer opening and no idea what to do next."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...It's easy to imagine nervous actors hamming this material for the sake of cheap laughs, but the production currently occupying the Goodman stage is chiefly characterized by its strict adherence to its satirical source, beginning with cinematography so artfully aged that you'd swear it was the real thing. The scholarly analyses promulgated by a panel of pundits (quoted in the show's publicity campaign) likewise mimics academic fashions to the last ibid. and op.cit. At the heart of Nottage's arguments, however, is the cast led by Tamberla Perry as the everywoman Vera Stark, whose persona and progress are guaranteed to awaken memories of their real-world counterparts (but how many of their names can you remember?)."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Nottage's second act makes a jarring tonal and temporal shift: The action now shifts back and forth between a 2003 panel discussion of Vera Stark's legacy and a recently unearthed 1973 television appearance-Vera's final interview. Director Chuck Smith handles this potentially unwieldy milieu well, tracing the disparities between what we know about Vera's beginnings and what the modern-day scholars on the panel want to project onto her. Perry is spellbinding as Nottage's star, shuffling identities in two different eras, trying to invent herself any way she can."
Chicago On the Aisle - Somewhat Recommended
"...“By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” directed by Chuck Smith with fetching costumes — both period and funky — by Birgit Rattenborg Wise, is an agreeable comedy that loses its compass and gets tangled in its message. In its comedic guise, Lynn Nottage’s theme is compelling; but when she abandons her core story and its prickly textured satire, the whole enterprise implodes."
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...Still, what struck me as most problematic about the second act was Nottage's panel of public intellectuals-activists, writers, and film people-who together comprise Vera Stark's grossest caricatures. Expressing themselves in spontaneous outbursts of spoken word, penning books on "parenthetical" black identities, prefacing their remarks with their curriculum vitae, and dressing in the showy uniforms of the "radicalized" classes, one can only take their smugly self-assured pontifications on Vera Stark, racial stereotypes, and black identity as gross parodies of the selfsame liberal sensibilities that underwrote so much of the first act's sense of humor."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...Vera Stark is real. I was at her audition. I saw the Academy Award nominee clip of her movie. I watched her on the Brad Donovan show. I even googled her and found websites dedicated to her film career. Nottage and Smith impressively use intricate subterfuge to tell the story of Vera Stark. Her pretend existence becomes an ironic tribute to the forgotten black actors. BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK looks at the civil rights movement from the Hollywood perspective."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Somewhat Recommended
"..."By the Way, Meet Vera Stark" has its moments as an occasionally sardonic trip down Hollywood memory lane, and some of the verbal and visual comedy works. But overall, not a strong balance sheet for a play with aspirations to explore racial identity and the insidious impact of racism in American culture."
