Intimate Apparel, A New Opera

 Intimate Apparel
A New Opera
Lincoln Center Theater
The Mitzie E. Newhouse
January 22, 2022 

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater

Lynn Nottage has collaborated with composer Ricky Ian Gordon on an opera version of her play, Intimate Apparel.  The Lincoln Center Theater production that was scheduled to open before the pandemic, is now running at the Mitzie E. Newhouse Theater.  Directed by Bartlett Sher, the production is simple and passionate.  The music and action flow from one scene to the next with sweeping momentum. 

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater

The year is 1905.  Esther (played by Kearstin Piper Brown) is an unmarried black woman who employs herself as a seamstress, making intimate apparel for a wide variety of customers.  She receives a letter from, George Armstrong (played by Justin Austin), a laborer working in Panama, digging the canal.  Esther cannot read or write, so she asks Mrs. Dickson, who runs the boardinghouse where she lives (played by Adrienne Danrich), to read the letter for her.  George is searching for companionship, and the son of Esther’s pastor recommended he write her.  Mrs. Dickson does not trust this letter.  Esther confides in one of her customers, Mrs. Van Buren (played by Naomi Louisa O’Connell), who boldly offers to reply to George’s letter.  The correspondence begins.  When Esther tells her friend and customer, Mayme (played by Krysty Swann), about her new suitor, she also volunteers to write letters for Esther.  Love builds over time, and George proposes marriage.  The wedding takes place the day of his arrival to New York.  Among the things they learn about one another is that neither of them was the author of their letters.

Kearstin Piper Brown & Justin Austin
Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater

The strength of Lynn Nottage’s writing in her 2004 play Intimate Apparel is the relationships.  In writing the libretto for this opera, she delved deeply into this aspect of the story.  Ricky Ian Gordon’s music takes these relationships to another level, especially in the second act.  The tenderness between Mr. Marks, the Jewish merchant from whom Esther buys fabric (played by Arnold Livingston Geis), gradually intensifies as the action progresses.  When Esther realizes her true feelings for Mr. Marks, the musical theme floats through the action.  It is repeated by Mrs. Van Buren, when she realizes her feelings for Esther, and again by Mayme as she meets and starts an affair with a man she calls Songbird.  It is emotionally engaging and follows through on the connections established in Act I.  The music and dramatic action equally build as Esther realizes that Mayme’s Songbird is actually her husband George.  

Although the cast is larger than Ms. Nottage’s original play, this is an intimate production.  It is very well suited for the Mitzie E. Newhouse Theater.  The set, designed by Michael Yearger, is minimal, consisting mainly of a turn table that keeps the scenes continually connected.  The costumes, designed by Catherine Zuber, are richly detailed and beautifully establish the time period.  The cast is superb.   Their voices are magnificent.  The acting is truthful.  

Intimate Apparel, A New Opera is playing at Lincoln Center Theater through February 28.  Don’t miss it! 

Domenick Danza

Clyde’s

 Clyde’s
Second Stage Theater
The Helen Hayes Theater
December 29, 2021 

Photo courtesy of Second Stage Theater

Lynn Nottage successfully steps into a new genre with her play Clyde’s.  It is bold and funny, yet still packs Ms. Nottage’s signature strong social message.  Director Kate Whorisky finds the pace and energy to keep the action moving.  The cast brilliantly creates larger than life characters who carry a vivid sense of vulnerability and humanity.

Uzo Aduba & Ron Cephas Jones
Photo courtesy of Second Stage Theater

Clyde (played by Uzo Aduba) owns a sandwich shop on a “nondescript stretch of road, in Berks
County, Pennsylvania.”  Montrellous (played by Ron Cephas Jones) urges Clyde to up the quality of the sandwiches in order to get more attention for the restaurant.  Clyde refuses to taste  his handiwork.  Montrellous trains the other kitchen workers, Raphael (played by Reza Salazar) and Letitia (played by Kara Young), to create new sandwiches with scrupulously chosen ingredients.  When Jason (played by Edmund Donovan) is hired to work in the kitchen, the creative momentum is thrown off.  Jason has recently been released from prison and is covered with white supremacist tattoos.  One by one each character reveals their incarceration history.  This is what they all have in common.  They desperately need their jobs at Clyde’s to get their lives on track, yet Clyde brutally keeps them all in place.  When a customer demands relish on one of Montrellous’ gourmet sandwich creations, all hell breaks loose. 

The Full Cast of Clyde's
Photo courtesy of Second Stage Theater

Uzo Aduba is a powerhouse as Clyde.  Her character makes dramatic entrances throughout the play, surprising and terrorizing the kitchen staff.  She is extreme and overbearing.  She pushes each one of her workers to the edge.  Just as it reaches a high point, Ms. Aduba softens and backs away, making you think there is a heart within her.  She then returns even more full of fire.  

Ron Cephas Jones is poetic and calming as Montrellous.  Reza Salazar is dynamic as Rafael.  Kara Young is a ball of energy as Letitia.  Edmund Donovan portrays Jason like a bomb ready to explode.  These skilled actors create characters with a burning desire to get out of the confines of their circumstances.  They are people who made mistakes in their past.  Their stories are complicated and touching.  You yearn for them to break out of the restrictions Clyde callously imposes on them. 

In this play, Ms. Nottage uses the kitchen of the sandwich shop to represent the limitations people put on themselves for past mistakes.  Clyde is the power that holds them down, whether it be the voice within or societal and economic challenges.  As each character forgives themselves, they move on, releasing themselves from Clyde’s demoralizing control. 

The Second Stage Theater production of Clyde’s is a MUST SEE.  It is playing at the Helen Hayes Theater through January 16.  Get a ticket today! 

Domenick Danza

The Watering Hole

 The Watering Hole
Signature Theatre
The Pershing Square Center
July 6, 2021 

Photo courtesy of Signature Theatre

Lynn Nottage and Miranda Haymon’s The Watering Hole, now at Signature Theatre’s Pershing Square Center, is a healing experience for the soul.  It is made up of ten installations that offer participants the opportunity to take a breath, review the past fifteen months, and release.  It is a communal acknowledgement of what we’ve gone through and what we need, as individuals and communal beings, to heal and move forward.  In this respect, it is great theatre.

You travel through the spaces in small groups (4 – 8), so it is a very quiet, personal experience.  Each installation has its own purpose.  Pre-Industrial and The Multiplicity of Our Desires are informational.  This Room is a Broken Heart, The Beach Explored, Water Brings Me Back to You, and Ebb & Flow invite you to take a deep look and participate, each in a different way.  Wings & Rings, Spray Cap, Sssssshhhhhh, and Frequency are experiential.  The installations build upon one other, connecting and flowing to engage you in a unique and much needed cathartic experience.

Lynn Nottage & Miranda Haymon
Photo courtesy of Signature Theatre

To walk through and sit in empty spaces of Pershing Square Center is in itself a wondrous journey.  As you realize these spaces, once filled with creative energy and top rate professionals, have been empty for the past fifteen months, your heart sinks a little.  As each installation fills with light and sound, you, the participant, becomes a part of the space.  You, the participant, fill the space with what it has been missing, and in return, your artist soul becomes reborn.

This piece was conceived and created by Lynn Nottage and Miranda Hayman with a clear and unselfish objective.  Get a ticket and enter it with an open mind and an open heart.  Breath and enjoy it. 

Domenick Danza

Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine

Fabulation,

or the Re-Education of Undine

Signature Theatre

Pershing Square Signature Center

December 26, 2018

Photo courtesy of Signature Theatre

What happens when the life you create for yourself collapses around you, leaving you with no choice but to return to your family, who you turned your back on years earlier?  That is the dramatic question and story line of Lynn Nottage’s comedy, Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine.  Director Lileana Blain-Cruz finds the timing needed to deliver the laughs in the cutting humor and direct address of the main character.  Ms. Nottage’s play is full of social commentary and bitter sarcasm, yet offers a glimpse for a more hopeful tomorrow. 

Undine (played by Cherise Boothe) is a self-made, high powered, very successful PR exec, who calls all the shots with total disregard for everyone but herself.  When her husband, Herve (played by Ian Lassiter), drains her bank accounts and abandons her, she finds herself pregnant and destitute.  She returns to her family in Brooklyn, who, according to the stories she make up when she re-created herself after college, died in a fire.  The culture shock of her return to the housing projects is heightened when she is arrested for buying crack for her addicted Grandmother (played by Heather Alicia Simms).  As dark as things get, nothing is greater than her fear of having a baby and becoming a mother.

J. Bernard Calloway & Cherise Boothe
Photo courtesy of Signature Theatre

Charisse Boothe delivers a tremendous performance in the difficult and complex role of Undine.  She is brash, pushy, condescending, and unlikeable, yet Ms. Boothe keeps a hold of the audience’s attention as they engage in her character’s journey.  Each one of Undine’s outbursts peels back a layer of her harsh exterior until her vulnerable heart is finally exposed.  At that moment you realize that Ms. Boothe has been playing every one of Undine’s brutal traits with that susceptible heart, which is why you connected to her struggle from the start.

Photo courtesy of Signature Theatre

The cast is a brilliant ensemble, playing numerous and varied roles.  Funny, touching, and raw character are created by Mayaa Boateng, Marcus Callender, J. Bernard Calloway, Dashiell Eaves, Ian Lassider, Nikiya Mathis, and Heather Alicia Simms. 

Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine is playing at Pershing Square Signature Center through January 13.  There’s still time to get a ticket.

Domenick Danza

Sweat

Sweat

Studio 54

May 21, 2017

Photo courtesy of Sweat

Sweat is a truthful telling of the social and economic events that took place in this country during the years 2000 through 2008 that allows us to clearly reflect on how America has become the divided nation it is today.  Through interviews and research, Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright Lynn Nottage has written authentic characters who struggle with challenges and face consequences that cause their lives to spiral out of control.  Her characters blindingly face their fears and frustrations head on. 

Tracey (played by Johanna Day), Cynthia (played by Michelle Wilson), and Jessie (played by Alison Wright) are close friends who have worked together on the factory floor in Reading, Pennsylvania for decades.  They are proud that they come from a long line of factory workers.  The year is 2000, and economic disruption is about to crumble the world they have come to know.  Cynthia accepts a promotion into a management position at the factory at the same time that the union contract is being challenged and factory jobs are being relocated to Mexico.  Non-English speaking residents are recruited as scabs during a union walk-out.  Fear, frustration, and betrayal build to heated anger and acts of violence from which there is no return.

Michelle Wilson & Johanna Day
Photos courtesy of Sweat

Johanna Day and Michelle Wilson shine in these brilliantly written, juxtaposed characters.  They build a relationship based on years of trust and reliability that brutally flips during the course of events.  They are the driving force that propels the action of the play.  Their portrayals are riveting, true, and genuine.  James Colby plays Stan, the bartender at the local watering hole.  His character is the neutral, rational negotiator throughout the play.  His portrayal is strong and warm-hearted.  Khris Davis and Will Pullen play younger workers at the factory who face a future with more choices than their parents.  These two actors complement one another amazingly well.  They create characters who face their challenges with opposite points of view.  They are viscerally connected and deliver powerful performances.  

Photo courtesy of Sweat

Kate Whoriskey masterfully directed this superb ensemble cast.  She skillfully builds tensions that explode with powerful human emotions.  The scenic design by John Lee Beatty is brilliant.  The set spins into place, keeping the pace moving quickly.  Lighting Design by Peter Kaczorowski sets a realistic tone, and Projection Design by Jeff Sugg keeps the audience grounded in the time period.

Will Pullen, James Colby, & Khris Davis
Photos courtesy of Sweat

What makes Sweat so powerful is that it is personal.  The emotional upheaval that takes place in the lives of the characters over the eight year span is understood and shared by every member of the audience.  Each character is clearly developed to present a different perspective of the effect of the economic changes in the working class during the years 2000 through 20008.  Ms. Nottage offers a glimpse of hope in the final moment of the play that empowers us to move forward with unity.

Domenick Danza