Intimate Apparel
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5 Stars
American Stage, 163 Third St. N., St. Petersburg, through Oct. 11. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 3 p.m. $39-$49. 727-823-PLAY, americanstage.org.
At first glance, Intimate Apparel looks like a sure thing. After all, it’s by Lynn Nottage, whose remarkable play Ruined won and deserved the Pulitzer Prize. And its subject — the life of an African-American seamstress in 1905 New York — is so far from cliché, there’s not another drama in memory that covers anywhere near the same territory. In the publicity, we learn that Nottage’s heroine, Esther, will have traffic with aristocrats and prostitutes, with a Panama Canal laborer whom she marries sight unseen, and a Jewish fabric merchant who doesn’t dare act on his feelings for her. That sounds promising enough; why shouldn’t the play be as satisfying as the blurbs say? Maybe more: maybe it’ll actually redeem some lost American history and help us know ourselves better.
Alas. Not the case.
What Intimate Apparel is, in reality, is a play undermined by over-obvious dialogue, lack of forward movement, and much redundancy. At two-and-a-half hours, it’s at least a half hour too long, and not even the ultra-sincere presentation currently at American Stage can rescue it from tedium. True, Act One offers what seem like wonderful prospects for future action; but as that action fails to arrive in Act Two (or when it appears as unconvincing, perfunctory plot twists), we’re left with little but the desire to get to the final curtain and back to our cars. What a disappointment! Or as one of Esther’s customers might say: So much good material gone to waste!
Consider the premise: Esther (Nikole Williams, in a performance that starts slow and gets better) is a 35-year-old seamstress living in a rooming house in New York. Among the customers for her camisoles and other underthings are rich white Mrs. Van Buren (the very persuasive Katrina Stevenson) and sassy black prostitute Mayme (ZZ Moor, whose acting lacks nuance and variety).
Esther is depressed to find herself still unmarried in her mid-30s, and pins all her romantic hopes on George Armstrong (the talented Eddie Ray Jackson), a worker in Panama who, for not very distinct reasons, has begun to correspond with her. There’s one other man who might figure as a love object: her fabric supplier Mr. Marks (Daniel Capote, all Yiddish accent and little reality); but as an Orthodox Jew, he’s not even allowed to touch a woman not married to him. When Esther decides to marry George Armstrong, there’s the suggestion that her pinched life may finally flower. But George isn’t what he said he was, and focuses not so much on loving his new wife as on exploiting her sexually and financially. Alone in new ways now, Esther has to fight for her dignity.
As I said, these seem ingredients for a successful drama. But even in its first minutes, Nottage’s dialogue is so blatantly on-the-nose, it’s hard to believe. (“If you must know, I turned 35 Thursday past,” she announces early in the first scene.) More damaging is the lack of forward progress as time elapses: Esther’s relationship with Mrs. Van Buren, for example, goes nowhere over two long acts, aside from one key miscue that’s not a bit supported elsewhere in the script. And then there are the redundancies: for example, we see an encounter in which Esther meets with Mr. Marks and there’s clear sexual tension between the two, but no one dares say so. A few minutes later, she meets with Mr. Marks again — and there’s sexual tension between the two, but no one dares say so. Then a third time, she meets with … you get the idea. Most plays hold our attention with new information (emotional or intellectual) every few moments, but the only relationship that changes importantly as this play progresses is Esther’s with George Armstrong, and here all the trouble comes right out a Lifetime movie.
Other aspects of the production are easier to like. Stephanie Gularte’s direction is pleasant, though she extends this already-long play with some unnecessary static moments; and Steve Mitchell’s single set representing various rooms is warmly serviceable. Saidah Ben-Judah’s costumes are fine, as is Jonathan Williams’ lighting. One impeccable touch is the period music designed by Gularte and Rachel Harrison.
The bottom line: a disappointment. A play with terrific elements poorly marshaled, not potently orchestrated.
A few years later, Nottage would write Ruined. Think of this one as a step toward that special accomplishment.
