We’ve had Noël Coward. We’ve had a boozy Billy Shakespeare. We’ve had an unfinished home fall apart right before our eyes in an Ibsen classic. We’ve had gut busting comedy to remind us of the lengths we have gone to for what feels like love.
"We do what we must. We are ridiculous creatures," says Mrs. Van Buren in Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel, which runs until November 1. The line and the play perfectly sum up the delightfully varied Westport Country Playhouse season – and why we keep coming back to the theatre for more.
Directed by Mary B. Robinson, Nottage’s play suggests that we can never truly know those who come in and out of our lives, but that we are all desperately yearning for someone to share them with.
The play centers on a seamstress named Esther, played by Nikki E. Walker, who can both warm and shatter your heart in the span of one scene. This is the case for the entire cast of six and essential for a Nottage piece to be done well.
There are many laugh out loud moments in this production, but that is a lot of Robinson’s doing (and Heather Alicia Simms’ sass and killer timing). Keep in mind, Nottage received her Pulitzer for writing Ruined, and if you have seen that play executed well, you are aware of the Brooklyn playwright’s ability to bring angry tears to your eyes as you clutch your program. (If you are not familiar with Ruined, consider it mandatory reading.)
Each of the characters in Intimate Apparel possesses a secret. Esther begins a courtship with a gentleman named George (Isaiah Johnson) through letters, which her wealthy client Mrs. Van Buren (Leighton Bryan) writes for her. The long distance letter writing results in a profession of love and hasty marriage. (We just made you feel loads better about having Tinder. You’re welcome.) From there, the secrets begin pouring out.
Just as set designer Allen Moyer’s pieces seamlessly disappear and reappear onstage, so too do the parts of ourselves we wish to reveal and conceal from those around us; it is no coincidence that all four of the set spaces are bedrooms, the most intimate space for people to come together and apart.
While the characters keep their flaws and feelings tightly corseted, the actors who portray them hold nothing back. Leighton Bryan, Aleta Mitchell, and Heather Alicia Simms constantly leave the audience laughing with their unabashed nosiness; however, there is also a deep sadness they bring in wanting so badly to busy themselves with the lives of the other characters. Walker’s character’s realizations about the life she (and most) assumes she wanted will break your heart, as will her interactions with Johnson and Schrider’s characters.
Taking the final curtain in Westport Country Playhouse’s 2014 season is a production that reminds us of why we go to the theatre and why we continue filling our lives with fellow “ridiculous creatures,” even at the risk of betrayal or deceit: to know the stories of others, and in doing so, to better understand the stories we are writing for ourselves.
Plays like Intimate Apparel beautifully represent a stitch in time for the characters onstage – and in the seats – in the chaotic tapestry of life’s events. Run, don’t walk, to catch its final curtain.