Love in denial: Tanya Moodie (Esther) and Ilan Goodman (Mr Marks). Photo credit: Simon Annand
Play: Intimate Apparel
Theatre: Park Theatre
Playwright: Lynn Nottage
Director: Laurence Boswell
Review by Joy Francis
Acclaimed African American playwright Lynn Nottage’s innate ability to weave history, fiction and drama into a tantalising whole is present in her play Intimate Apparel, which gets its UK premiere in London 11 years after its first US production.
Set in New York in 1905, illiterate and unmarried seamstress Esther (a fantastic Tanya Moodie) makes exquisite ‘intimate apparel’ for a cross section of women – from prostitutes to bored high society ladies.
A resident in a boarding house for young single black women for 18 years, Esther is reminded of her spinster status as she sews yet another undergarment for a tenant with a face “plain as flour” who is engaged to be married. Despite acting as if being single isn’t a burden, she yearns to be seen, loved and touched by a man. But she believes herself too “plain” to be snapped up. Instead, she pins her hopes on opening her dream beauty parlour with thousands of dollars saved and hand stitched into a quilt.
When Esther receives a letter from George (Chu Omambala), the nephew of a man she knew from her childhood church, she is sucked into a fantasy relationship. A Bajan labourer helping to build the Panama canal, George’s letters are full of lyricism, humanitarian zeal and affection.
Esther enlists her clients, the wealthy and despondent Mrs Van Buren (Sara Topham) and heavy drinking prostitute Mayme (Rochelle Neil), to read the letters and write back in her name. When George offers his hand in marriage, she agrees, seeing it as her last chance to find happiness.
Her heart, though, is drawn to another – Mr Marks, the Jewish haberdasher who she visits each week. They share a passion for the finest fabric and have their own intimate ritual where he entices her with his wares, unfurling the charming story behind each roll of material. He encourages Esther to smell and touch the material, which she does with childlike abandon; a mating ritual between two people from different cultures who each ache to be loved.
When George arrives in New York to meet his future bride, the fantasy they share soon unravels, leading to compromise, painful secrets and betrayal.
As with her Pulitzer winning play Ruined, Nottage’s beautiful, poetic and emotionally evocative writing shines, this time under Laurence Boswell’s energetic and dynamic direction. She takes historical detail – early post-slavery America and the human sacrifice made to build the Panama canal – to show black women (and men) struggling to find their identity in the new world order.
Intimate Apparel has some knockout performances. Dawn Hope as Esther’s landlady Mrs Dickson is funny and sharp. Omambala’s transition from romantic wordsmith to self centred player is convincing and Ilan Goodman is captivating as Mr Marks.
But without question, the heart, soul and anchor of the play is the amazing Tanya Moodie. She plays Esther with great insight, skill, emotion and courage. It is hard to peel your eyes away from her as she moves deftly between pain and pleasure, fear and opinion, all engraved on her face and inhabited by her body. Moodie manages to reveal the vulnerable, angry, insecure and under-educated inner child lurking inside Esther’s womanly body.
At an intimidating two hours and 40 minutes, the play flies by. The quality of the production, writing and acting makes this my contender for one of the best plays of 2014.
Intimate Apparel is at Park Theatre until 27 July 2014.