******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ********************
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*****************************************************************
NY Times, August 16 2015
Review: Lynn Nottage’s ‘Sweat’ Examines Lives Unraveling by Industry’s
Demise
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
ASHLAND, Ore. — “Sweat,” the title of Lynn Nottage’s scorching new play,
refers to the hard labor that its characters have put in for decades,
only to find their modest livelihoods threatened by the evaporation of
manufacturing jobs in America. But members of the audience may find
themselves getting a little moist with anxiety as this extraordinarily
moving drama hurtles toward its conclusion with the awful inevitability
of Greek tragedy.
Certainly I found myself squirming in my seat as I watched the forces of
fate, or, to be more specific, the mechanics of 21st-century American
capitalism bear down on these characters with the brutal power of a
jackhammer smashing through concrete.
Ms. Nottage, who won a Pulitzer Prize for “Ruined,” her terrific drama
about the human cost of a civil war in Africa, has surpassed even that
achievement with “Sweat,” which is making its premiere at the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival here in a blazingly well-acted production directed
by Kate Whoriskey, who also directed the premiere production of
“Ruined.” (“Sweat,” co-commissioned by Arena Stage in Washington, opens
there in January.)
Ms. Whoriskey and Ms. Nottage drew on interviews with residents of
Reading, Pa., ranked among the poorest cities in America, as part of
their research for the play. And to describe the play as a trenchant and
insightful analysis of the consequences of the sharp decline in factory
work in the country, and the gutting of once-mighty unions, may make it
sound like a hortatory tract aimed at raising awareness of the human
blight these trends have caused.
Forget all that. “Sweat” is by no means a thinly dramatized op-ed piece.
From first moments to last, this compassionate but cleareyed play
throbs with heartfelt life, with characters as complicated as any you’ll
encounter at the theater today, and with a nifty ticking time bomb of a
plot. That the people onstage are middle-class or lower-middle-class
folks — too rarely given ample time on American stages — makes the play
all the more vital a contribution to contemporary drama.
And while its trajectory is dark, even devastating, “Sweat” is damn
funny, too: Ms. Nottage knows well that the natural reactions to the
assaults of life faced by these particular people are a savage sense of
humor, and, more damagingly, a swan dive into the comforts of alcohol
and drugs.
If I had pompoms, I’d be waving them now. But to get to the heart of the
matter: “Sweat” opens with scenes set in 2008, depicting a parole
officer (Tyrone Wilson) in meetings with two ex-convicts, imprisoned for
their involvement in the same crime, who have come through the system
with deeply divergent results. Jason (Stephen Michael Spencer), with
white-supremacist tattoos etched into his face and neck, reacts with
sullen anger to questions about his prospects. His former friend, the
African-American Chris (Tramell Tillman), by contrast, has discovered
the sustaining solace of religion, and hopes to get his life back on
track by taking up the college studies he was forced to abandon.
“Sweat” moves fluidly between these passages (and others set elsewhere
but at the same time) and scenes from eight years before, when the bulk
of the action takes place. In the foreground of these scenes, set in a
bar favored by workers at the local metal tubing plant, are three
middle-aged women, fast friends who together have put in more than 60
years working machines on the factory floor.
Jessie (K. T. Vogt), passed out at a table in the corner, isn’t exactly
doing her part to celebrate the birthday of Tracey (Terri McMahon), who
we eventually learn is Jason’s mother. The breakup of Jessie’s marriage
has driven her to imbibe more than usual, although Tracey doesn’t feel
too sympathetic, having weathered her own failed marriage.
Cynthia (Kimberly Scott), the mother of Chris, has more pressing man
trouble. (Both Chris and Jason, not incidentally, also work at the
plant, although Chris has higher aspirations.) She had unwisely let her
ex-husband, Brucie (Kevin Kenerly), move back in for a few days around
the Christmas holidays, only to wake up on the morning itself and find
half the presents under the tree gone — as well as her fish tank.
Brucie, whose union has been locked out of the city’s other plant for
two months after the union balked at draconian pay cuts, has been
hitting something harder than the bottle.
Presiding over Tracey’s informal birthday party — and the subsequent,
less festive birthdays of Jessie and Cynthia — is Stan (Jack Willis),
the bartender, though not the owner of the bar. He, too, worked in the
factory, as did his father and grandfather, until an accident caused by
a faulty machine almost cost him a leg. He’s an avuncular type who keeps
the peace when necessary, with the help of his Dominican bar-back, Oscar
(Carlo Albán).
Mediation becomes increasingly necessary when Cynthia applies for and,
to everyone’s surprise, wins a promotion to management, causing a
painful rift with Tracey, who had also applied and resents being
supervised by a former equal. She attributes Cynthia’s selection to
tokenism. More trouble comes when rumors of layoffs begin swirling, and
Cynthia finds herself caught between her duties as a manager and her
sympathy with her friends in the union.
With its large cast of precisely drawn characters — most of whom, when
not riled by fear about their dimming futures, are great company —
“Sweat” brims with the kind of ripe, richly imagined life associated
with the work of the great August Wilson (a comparison I do not make
lightly). Ms. Nottage’s colloquial dialogue doesn’t approach or even
attempt his singing lyricism, but Jessie delivers a beautiful monologue
about the life she might have led had she not, when still a teenager,
started working in a factory.
Ms. Nottage’s sympathies clearly lie with the workers facing virtual if
not literal extinction (there are swipes taken at the North American
Free Trade Agreement), but the politics are embedded so deeply in the
drama that we never feel the playwright is distorting the play’s
trajectory to score sociopolitical points. The issues this drama raises
— painfully timely ones, I hardly need add — surface organically from
the circumstances. Complex matters of race, class and culture are
handled with impeccable deftness.
Writing that cuts this close to the bone draws out the best in actors.
The ensemble is exemplary, so uniformly excellent that I cannot point to
a single performance as rising above the rest. To laud them individually
would require another review.
Let it be enough to say that each actor locates the rich humanity in his
or her character, and transmits it to the audience with deceptive ease.
When the play reaches its climax, we feel so swept up in the fracturing
lives of the people onstage that the distance between that world and the
real one it reflects with such searing precision has all but collapsed.
_________________________________________________________
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at:
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
