If
there is one thing that we can learn about the theatre
by watching Lynn Nottage's flawless play, Intimate
Apparel (which originally
premiered at Baltimore's Centre Stage in 2003), it is that if you
actually
study the craft of theatre it may help you to go on and - as is true in
the
case of Ms. Nottage - do great things. The 46 year old playwright
studied at
Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, and is the recipient of
a
Guggenheim Fellowship, the NY Drama Critics Circle Award, the John
Gassner
Outer Critics Circle award, a MacArthur Genius Grant (not to mention a
Pulitzer
Prize) as well as numerous other awards. She clearly thinks about what
she is
doing and then goes out and does it very well indeed.
The
only thing better than writing a good play is having
it presented properly and by that I mean in a venue that is appropriate
with
production values that support the work rather than undermining it. And
for
this we have to thank Philip Aiken, the artistic director of Obsidian
Theatre,
Canada's largest Black theatre company, for ensuring that this play
would be
seen in Toronto. Intimate Apparel had its intimate Canadian premiere in
2008 at
the small 167 seat upstairs space at Berkeley Street before general
manager of
Can Stage, David Abel, invited the show onto the mainstage of the
Bluma Appel
Theatre where it rightfully belongs.
This
class based story of interlocking characters in turn
of the century New York (1905), takes it strength from the central role
of
Esther, the African American seamstress who, in the first act, carries
on a
long distance romantic correspondence with a labourer who is employed
in the
building of the Panama Canal. Raven Dauda as Esther plays the
self-reliant
woman who, at the age of 35, only lacks confidence in the area of her
social
skills. She interacts with Mrs. Dickson (Marium Carvell), the
owner of the
boarding house where she has lived in lower Manhattan for the past 18
years;
with Mrs. Van Buren (played by Carly Street) who is the upper
class, lonely
socialite for whom Esther constructs enticing corsets; with Mayme (Lisa
Berry)
the local piano playing prostitute; with Mr. Marks (Alex Poch-Goldin),
the shy
Orthodox Jewish merchant who sells her fabric; and, finally, with
George (Kevin
Hanchard), Esther's love interest who we hear by way of long
distance,
romantically recited correspondence in the first act and who emerges
"for
real" in the second act.
A
well crafted play demands the skills of gifted actors
and here again, Aiken's production rings pitch perfect true. The
sweeping
romantic arch of the play and the neatly delineated main characters,
captures
much of what was compelling about the style of 19th century American
melodrama,
so much so that, at a critical point in the second act, audience
members
(especially the women) are moved to call out a warning to their
heroine,
Esther, "don't do it!", "no, don't you do it girl!" - such
is the emotional pull of this play.
Although
the Canadian Stage Company's new artistic and
general director, Matthew Jocelyn, has not yet announced his
upcoming season
(the first that he will produce) at this writing, one thing is certain
- Lynn
Nottage's new play, Ruined (her take on Brecht's Mother Courage and Her
Children) is definitely on the bill, to be directed by Mr. Aiken. For
that we
give thanks.