THE THREADS THAT BREAK
The African-American playwright Lynn Nottage sits atop the honor role of American playwrights from the first two decades of the 21st century — she has written a dozen full-length plays, two of which (Sweat and Ruined) won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and she wrote the book for the hit MJ The Musical. Her plays primarily center on the experiences of working-class Black people. Anyone looking for a prime introduction into her work should visit the North Coast Repertory Theatre‘s revival of Nottage’s 2004 drama, Intimate Apparel. The play includes a love story, social history, race, humor, and high drama, blended with bull’s eye sensitivity.
NEDRA SNIPES, ARIZSIA STATON
Intimate Apparel is loosely based on the life of Nottage’s great grandmother. The setting is a rooming house in New York City in 1905 and the heroine is Esther Mills (Nedra Snipes), an illiterate 35-year-old Black spinster who settled in NYC from North Caroline at the age of 17, becoming a skilled seamstress. Esther lives alone in the rooming house, carefully saving her meager earnings from creating corsets and similar female apparel for customers both Black and White.
MADELEINE BARKER
Esther has no illusions about herself. At 35 she is not good-looking and she recognizes her chances of finding romance and marriage are virtually nonexistent. But Esther is a good person and she attracts people who enjoy her friendship. They include the rooming-house operator Mrs. Dickson (Teri Brown), a local prostitute named Mayme (Arizsia Staton), the discontented upper class white matron Mrs. Van Buren (Madeleine Barker), and a white Orthodox Jewish textile merchant named Mr. Marks (Jonathan Fisher, Jr.).
There is an especially affecting suggestion of a romantic connection between Esther and Mr. Marks, but both back away, recognizing that their racial and religious contrasts make a closer connection impossible. Not in this country at that time.
NEDRA SNIPES, JONATHAN FISHER JR.
Esther’s life changes when she starts exchanging letters with George Amstrong (Donald Paul), a Barbados construction laborer working on the Panama Canal. To conceal her illiteracy, Esther uses her friends to write to the man, and the correspondence develops into to a marriage proposal from George. Esther accepts and the first act concludes as they become newlyweds.
The first act is mostly genial as the playwright introduces the audience to the characters. The tension ratchets up in the second act, beginning with a short comic scene in which the groom unsuccessfully tries to lure Esther into the marital bed. But by the next scenes there are problems. Armstrong, so amiable in the opening act, reveals himself to be a s scoundrel, sexually cheating on Esther (including tri-weekly visits to Mayme) and eventually stealing all of Esther’s salon savings before leaving permanently. In George’s partial defense, he has become a reckless man embittered by the racism he has endured during his construction jobs.
NEDRA SNIPES, DONALD PAUL
At the end of the play, the abandoned Esther has moved back into Mrs. Dickson’s boarding house. resuming her seamstress career to rebuild her dream of opening her own intimate apparel salon. In the last glimpse the audience sees of Esther she is smiling as she tenderly rubs her stomach. The woman is pregnant, and happy about her condition. It’s a wonderfully optimistic ending.
ARIZSIA STATON
The North Coast Rep has outfitted Nottage’s work with a superb cast. The show obviously belongs primarily to Nedra Snipes’s Esther, who shifts emotional gears with total credibility as the fortunes of her character rise and fall. But all the performers fit in with ensemble perfection. That means that much praise must be awarded to Jasmine Bracey for direction that brings so many moods into such dramatic sync.
NEDRA SNIPES, TERI BROWN
The physical production is in the capable hands of a cluster of designers who know just how to harness the intimacy of the Rep theater. They include Marty Burnett (set), Matt Novotny (lighting), Elisa Benzoni (costumes), Evan Eason (sound), Cindy Rumley (for her especially effective props), and Matt Fitzgerald (projections). They have collaborated to give the production an authentic historical feeling. Indeed, Intimate Apparel is as much a learning experience as a theatrical pleasure.
photos by Aaron Rumley
Intimate Apparel
North Coast Repertory Theatre
987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach
Wed and Thurs at 7; Fri at 8; Sat at 2 & 8; Sun at 2 & 7
ends on February 4, 2024
for tickets ($49 to $74), call 858.481-1055 or visit North Coast Rep
