Review: She sews “Intimate Apparel” but is snagged by society’s restrictions

Like its protagonist, Intimate Apparel has not had the smoothest journey to get here. Originally slated to open in mid-January, Actor’s Express’ production of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage’s 2003 play was postponed two full months due to the Omicron surge this past winter.

Thankfully, it was well worth the wait. Under the assured direction of Ibi Owolabi and anchored by a quietly enthralling lead performance by Vallea E. Woodbury, this tale of loneliness and longing, ambition and love, and race, class and gender is profoundly moving.

Intimate Apparel opens to the sound of horse hooves and other noises from the busy city streets of 1905 New York City. We meet Esther Mills, a resilient and talented Black woman who managed to work her way slowly but surely state by state from North Carolina to the Big Apple, in the pursuit of not just a better life but the fulfillment of big-city dreams.

Esther toils as a seamstress, stitching together exquisite undergarments for both wealthy “5th Avenue” clients like Mrs. Van Buren (Candi VandiZandi) as well as sex workers like Mayme (Valeka Jessica). Meanwhile, Esther has been saving up, stitching money into the quilt on her bed — which means she’s literally sleeping underneath the warmth of a brighter future each night.

To her clients and to the woman she rents a room from, Mrs. Dixon (a lively and layered comedic turn from Terry Henry), Esther is sweet, self-effacing and unshakably calm. But she wants more. She wants love.

It’s clear that she and the Jewish Romanian cloth merchant she buys fabric from, Mr. Marks (thoughtfully and empathetically embodied by Ross Benjamin), share an unacknowledged longing for one another. However, the pervasive societal intolerance (and in some states, legal prohibition) of interracial relationships stands in the way of ever acting on those romantic desires. (To quote Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, “A bird and a fish may fall in love, but where would they build a house together?”)

As a result, despite creating beautiful lingerie for many brides to wear at their weddings, Esther, at 35, has all but completely resigned herself to the prospect of never marrying. But that attitude shifts when she receives a letter from a mysterious man she has never met, George, who’s working on the Panama Canal dig, and strikes up an intense amorous correspondence. There’s just one hitch: Esther can’t read. So, as a default, she has Mayme and Mrs. Van Buren pen the letters for her, thus involving them in the whirlwind courtship.

The scenic design by Jennifer Rose Ivey cleverly sets up all the action to take place in three very different bedrooms. Mrs. Van Buren’s boudoir is to the left, painted in rich reds and bedazzled with fine art and décor that screams dollar signs. In the middle is Esther’s bed, with the savings account of a stuffed bedspread.

To the right is the room where Mayme lives and works, which includes a piano that she plays skillfully, pouring her frustrations, rage and hope into each trip across the ivory keys — from raucous blues songs to Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” 

When we first meet her, the smart, charismatic and deep-feeling cynic Mayme says almost apologetically, “I wasn’t born this black and blue.” In this complex role, Jessica can be uproariously funny or filled with pathos and bitterness at how trapped she feels. 

Together she and Esther have developed a dear friendship, sharing their wildest dreams in one of the show’s most heartwarming scenes. Mayme talks about being a concert pianist in Prague while Esther describes owning her own shop where she can treat the Black women clientele with the same deference currently extended to mainly white patrons. “So many good ideas get conjured up in this room,” Mayme remarks.

VandiZandi makes palpable the oblivious self-involvement of Mrs. Van Buren, who thinks that she and Esther are fast friends because Esther listens to her chatter about her fraught relationship with her husband. Never mind that their power dynamics are immensely skewed. “You’re lucky!” she exclaims frivolously when Esther says she’s never been to the opera, as if it’s a chore to be so privileged.

Like the gentleman caller visit in The Glass Menagerie, there’s a sense throughout the first act that things could go dreadfully wrong with the enigmatic George, who seems potentially too good to be true. One of the most brilliant aspects of Nottage’s writing is how she lets us form our initial impression and expectations of George solely through his “sugared words,” as Mrs. Dixon calls them — delivered poetically and dreamily by an excellent Marcus Hopkins-Turner. (For the first half of the show, George narrates his letters from the dark, illuminated by a spotlight off to the side of the stage.)

Though it’s not a significant part of the plot, especially during the second half of the play, the historical backdrop of the digging of the Panama Canal gives us some haunting images. As George writes/narrates how he and his crew have laid waste to the natural splendor all around them, he says softly, “I wondered how a place so beautiful could become a morgue.” 

Unfortunately for Esther, none of the women in her life have particularly happy relationships from which to draw any comparison or advice. In this world, everyone is differing degrees of unfulfilled. Mrs. Dixon, for instance, talks about how her husband’s “infatuation with opiates” meant that he barely noticed his new wife. Still, because he came with the boarding house she now operates, she concludes that their unhappy union was ultimately worth the pain. Nottage makes it clear that for women in the circumstances Esther aspires to transcend, the prospect of true choice barely exists. It’s all about what you gain for what you give up.

Still, it’s Esther’s relationship with Mr. Marks that remains the most poignant, tender and moving through subtle but meaningful gestures, like an invitation to drink tea together or the brushing of a collar. The way he picks the most beautiful, finely tailored fabrics and ecstatically gushes about them to her has taken on a deeper meaning than just seller to buyer. “It isn’t so often that something so fine and delicate enters the store,” he tells her, clearly referring to more than fabric. 

Like those intricately crafted cloths, this production of Intimate Apparel — through acting, writing, direction and stage craft — threads together an expertly woven tapestry of yearning and heartache. It will envelop and remain wrapped around you long after leaving the theater.

::

Alexis Hauk has written and edited for numerous newspapers, alt-weeklies, trade publications and national magazines including Time, the Atlantic, Mental Floss, Uproxx and Washingtonian magazine. Having grown up in Decatur, Alexis returned to Atlanta in 2018 after a decade living in Boston, Washington, D.C., New York City and Los Angeles. By day, she works in health communications. By night, she enjoys covering the arts and being Batman.