Review: Lyric Stage Boston's Latest Is ANGRY, RAUCOUS, AND SHAMELESSLY GORGEOUS

It’s difficult to look away from a play titled Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous.

Look closely, though, because the moniker of playwright, essayist, novelist, and political activist Pearl Cleage’s all-female comedy-drama — with its look at the friction between older Black performers and their on-the-rise young competitors — is not always what it appears to be. It’s more than just the story of an age-spanning rivalry, it’s also about the shadows of the past that bedevil some.

Now through April 12, Lyric Stage Boston is presenting an appealingly well cast production of the 2019 theatrical work by Atlanta-based playwright Pearl Cleage (“Blues for an Alabama Sky”). An essayist, novelist, and political activist, Cleage uses the piece to avenge what appears to be her none-too-subtle resentment of legendary dramatist August Wilson.

Of the late writer often called “theater’s poet of Black America,” she has one character say, “He’s even got a theatre on Broadway named after him.” That line is delivered by Cleage’s central character, acclaimed veteran actor Anna Campell (Patrice Jean-Baptiste), whose revolutionary monologues from “Fences” — Wilson’s Tony Award-winning Best Play of 1987 — became known as “Naked Wilson” and made the “angry” actor a legend in her own right.

Along the way, however, the provocatively named show stirred up controversy with its contention that women are too often background characters in Wilson’s plays — with the Black elite angry at what they see as Anna’s public disdain of America’s most revered Black playwright. Leading the play’s audience to understand Anna’s significance and weaknesses is Betty Samson (Inés de la Cruz, in her Lyric Stage debut), Anna’s confidante and manager, who watches her every move.

Their friend and admirer Kate (Deannah “Dripp” Blemur, in her Lyric Stage debut) has lured the pair back from the Netherlands to Atlanta where her she is producing a theater festival centered on a new mounting of “Naked Wilson,” and honoring Anna’s career. What the aging actress doesn’t comprehend at first, however, is that she is not meant to perform the piece. Instead, Kate has cast an ambitious, not to mention “shamelessly” audacious, 25-year-old Precious “Pete” Watson (Yasmeen Duncan) to play Anna’s signature  role, even though Pete’s stage experience is more as an ecdysiast than as an actress.

Under the knowing direction of Elliot Norton Award winner Jacqui Parker, Cleage’s sometimes too-thin script benefits greatly from the weighty talent of its cast — most notably the estimable Jean-Baptiste, for whom the role of Anna seems tailor-made. As Anna’s ever loyal partner Betty, de la Cruz does fine work as the stabilizing influence in the star’s career and life. Duncan imbues Pete with youthful confidence and enthusiasm, whether tangling with Anna or negotiating with Blemur’s business-minded Kate.

In addition to being a director, Parker is also an actor, playwright, and producer, and she clearly knows her way around these characters and this story — adeptly finding the humor in Cleage’s detailing of the harshness between generations, and depicting the intuition needed to know when to fight for your place and when to lend your experience to the next era of artists.

The 100-minute, single-act play lives up to the “gorgeously” in its name with scenic designer Janie E. Howland’s rich staging of the up-scale hotel suite, well appointed by props artisan Julia Wonkka. The production’s visual appeal is further enhanced by Costume Designer Chelsea Kerl’s character-appropriate clothing including chic, patterned palazzo pants and fine-gauge knit sweaters for Baptiste, stylish casual wear for de la Cruz, and the denim rompers and jewel-toned satins worn by Blemur and Duncan.

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