Review: Guthrie’s ‘Nacirema Society’ is a stitch worthy of Shakespeare and its Black high society

The information is enough to cause two sherry-sipping grand dames to faint hilariously in turn.

As best friends Grace Dubose Dunbar (Greta Oglesby) and Catherine Adams Green (Regina Marie Williams) put the final touches on a cotillion that will see Grace’s granddaughter, Gracie (Nubia Monks), come out on the arms of Catherine’s grandson, Bobby (Darrick Mosley), an unexpected visitor arrives to threaten their plans.

Alpha Campbell Jackson (Aimee K. Bryant), the daughter of the maid who worked for the Dunbars for 40 years, scurries in urgently with something she wants to share in the worst way. The development comes at the worst possible time — on the eve of the ball in 1964 Montgomery, Ala., where the crème-de-la-crème of the Black society will be present and at a time when New York Times correspondent Janet Logan (Joy Dolo) has arrived to cover the ball.

How will Grace and Catherine, who also are scheming to get their grandchildren to marry each other, ever get out of this brewing scandal? And will the youngsters, including Alpha’s daughter, Lillie (Essence Renae), hew to tradition or chart their own paths?

The plot might resemble a William Shakespearean romantic comedy with “Midsummer”-esque young lovers and Oscar Wildean linguistic flourishes. But it’s from “The Nacirema Society,” Pearl Cleage’s carbonated comedy that opened Thursday at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

Gorgeously designed by costumer Trevor Bowen and scenic designer Takeshi Kata, the production boasts astute direction by Valerie Curtis-Newton and confident performances by her first-rate company. “Nacirema,” which is “American” spelled backward, percolates with verve and humor.

The show peels back the curtain on a part of society that’s rarely examined in art and culture. Pockets of educated and wealthy Black people have persisted in America from its earliest days, even as they have been looked on from within and without with a mixture of admiration, curiosity and occasional disdain.

OK, so they can be occasionally tart pills. But their casual condescension is eased by bon mots and bonhomie. Ultimately, they are not just stylish ladies who lunch and take jaunts to New York to see shows and be fangirls of great art. They are also truly guardians of Black traditions and excellence.

Curtis-Newton’s production is nuanced and deeply informed. If anything, she may take too much care to be reverential. Both the studied cadence and medium volume occasionally suggest that we should lean in for a drama rather than sit back and laugh at the comedy (there are guffaws aplenty, even if the players could project a little more loudly on the difficult-to-master Wurtele Thrust Stage). And Curtis-Newton has a curious blocking with not one but two characters alternately sitting at a table and giving the audience their backs.

Modeling Bowen’s gorgeous costumes, Oglesby and Williams are a stitch as the three-named eminences. Oglesby’s Grace is a lady of supreme confidence who brooks no fools, and the actor delivers, as her character’s name suggests, with magisterial grace.

Catherine is no less regal in her bearing and certainty, and Williams, a veteran of the Wurtele Thrust, earns the biggest laughs not just from her fainting spell but also from her surefire delivery.

Monks shines as Gracie, who has her own ideas about what she wants to do with her life and whom she may nor may not marry. If her character is a sparkplug, Monks is a sparkler.

That’s especially true of Bryant’s Alpha as she justifies to herself why blackmail is more a gray area, and thus not a crime. Dolo’s Janet Logan cleaves closer to ethical lines but she, too, invites us into her dilemmas.

Usually a maid with no lines at all would not merit a callout in a notice about a show like this, but Charla Marie Bailey’s Jessie is a nosy, discreet tea-gatherer. She hears all and speaks nothing, listening for dirt that she may be able to use sometime in some distant future.

“Nacirema” is about women but there’s one man in the show — well, one speaking man. Poised and well-mannered, Mosley’s Bobby is, like the character says, all of the Temptations rolled into one.

But another man looms over the proceedings. The family’s beneficent if problematic patriarch hangs prominently in a painting in the mezzanine study. He may not say anything but his proud presence speaks volumes.

For this is a show about legacy, class and style, and at the Guthrie, “Nacirema” notches its own witty mark.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 1 & 7:30 p.m. Sat., 1 & 7 p.m. Sun. Ends May 25.