welcome to the geffen playhouse
Photo by Andrew Southam
by the way, meet vera stark
From the artistic Director Lynn Nottage’s By The Way, Meet Vera Stark opens our 17th season at the Geffen Playhouse. Nottage’s Ruined, which enthralled audiences when it kicked off our 15th season, put us in the midst of a war on women on the other side of the world in the Democratic Republic of Congo. By the Way, Meet Vera Stark unfolds in our own backyard, Hollywood in the 1930s. The character Vera Stark has come from what Nottage called in an interview with New York City’s Second Stage Theatre her “fascination and frustration with old Hollywood.” Inspired by Baby Face, a 1933 film starring Barbara Stanwyck and African American actress Theresa Harris as her maid, Nottage said she was struck by the nuances of Harris’s character as well as by her character’s relationship to Stanwyck’s. The movie reminded Lynn of how much Hollywood changed in 1934 when the Hays Code began to be enforced. The Hays Code, a self-regulatory set of rules created by Hollywood producers to set standards of morality and ethics for the film industry, included, in addition to limitations on the use of profanity and nudity, certain restrictions on the allowable interactions between the white and black races. These changes profoundly impacted the careers not only of Harris but also of a whole generation of African-American “leading ladies-in-waiting,” as well as the industry itself. We are also so pleased to have director Jo Bonney return to the Geffen. Having directed the original New York production, Jo helms an extraordinary design team and a powerful ensemble. Welcome to the Geffen’s 2012/2013 season. And by the way, enjoy the show.
Randall Arney Artistic Director PErFORMANCEs MAGAZINE P1