‘Apparel’
shows sophistication with letters
By Monica Levette Clark
On-line Forty-Niner
 COSTA
MESA — Lynne Nottage is drawn to the stage
not for the drama, climactic experiences
or the tragic moments, but for the intertwining
relationship among different voices on stage,
as opposed to in a book.
Nottage is also fond of the idea of theater
as a collaborative effort between director,
writer, actors, designers and even their
audience.
In her latest play, “Intimate Apparel,”
which premiered April 11 at the South Coast
Repertory’s Segerstrom Stage, Nottage explores
the experiences held by three women from
the high, middle and low rungs of society
in the 1900s.
Esther Mills (Shane Williams) is the protagonist
of the play, a 35-year-old innocent black
woman, who worked as a seamstress making
lingerie for 22 years to pay for her stay
in a boarding house in New York’s Tenderloin.
Mrs. Van Buren (Sue Cremin) is a Fifth Avenue
lady who is in a failed marriage, determined
to please her husband with her beautiful
looks and social graces. She is also a valuable,
dependable customer of Esther, whom she
shares her secrets with.
Mayme (Erica Gimpel) is a lady of the night
who dances for men at a local saloon and
shows them a better time afterwards to make
her real money. She is also the best friend
of Esther, although their realities are
worlds apart.
The plot of the play is made clear at the
very beginning. Esther is a deeply religious
woman, with high, conservative morals, who
longs for romance with a man to make her
humble existence complete. She is also striving,
like she has been since she moved to New
York in her teen years, for a distant dream
she has of owning her own beauty parlor
to service black clientele. She finds a
man, George Armstrong (Kevin Jackson), but
he is half across the world in Panama, a
laborer working on the canal being built
at that time.
They begin a fated love affair, but only
through letters, that get more intimate
with time. She gets one from him twice a
month. After six months he asks, by letter
for her hand in marriage, which she gives
to him when he travels to New York to be
with her.
But when he gets there, the plot thickens.
George is disappointed with her not-so-drop-dead-gorgeous
countenance. He was expecting the women
who had so seduced him with stories of her
crafting the perfect, sexy bustier, to be
just as enticing in person.
Now living on her own, and out of the boarding
house, with a man who is as boisterous as
he is harsh and tactless, Esther finds herself
in a bleak situation that only acts worse
as it plays out. “Intimate Apparel” paints
a true picture of these women, with its
truly, believable dialogue for people living
in those times.
The dialogue is sometimes funny, sometimes
blunt, but altogether honest and revelatory.
It is a great, but sorrowful tale based
on a woman’s very human experience with
love that doesn’t amount to much but open
wounds and a bruised disposition in the
end.
The two-hour play will run at the Segerstrom
Hall in Costa Mesa through May 18.
|
