Writer: Lynn Nottage
Director: Lynette Linton
Partially based on the life of her own great-grandmother, Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel examines the lives of women, particularly Black women, in early 1900s New York through the eyes of Esther, a seamstress who specialises in making corsetry and other women’s undergarments. At the age of 35, the plain-looking Esther has resigned herself to being single. Still, when she begins correspondence with a charming labourer working on the construction of the Panama Canal, she begins to believe that other paths are becoming available.
Samira Wiley’s Esther is meek when interacting with other women in her circle, from the booming jollity of her landlady, Mrs Dickson (Nicola Hughes), to her socialite client, Claudia Jolly’s Evangeline, and her sex worker friend Mayme (Faith Omole). The three help the seamstress, who cannot read, to construct and parse the letters she sends and receives from Kadiff Kirwan’s George. Handwriting extracts scrawl across the back of Alex Berry’s set design as the two communicate, suggesting a developing intimacy between the letter writers that forgets the layers of proxy readers and writers between.
But even as the nature of Esther and George’s relationship grows, there is another, more established, relationship, with the seamstress’s haberdasher. Alex Waldmann’s Mr Marks clearly adores Esther, retaining exceptional pieces of silk and lace for his favourite client, but his Jewish faith prevents him from even touching her. Besides, he is betrothed to a woman he has never met. As the correspondence with George intensifies and Esther accepts a proposal of marriage from the man she has not yet met, director Lynette Linton ensures that the heartbreaking tension between seamstress and soulmate has a tangible presence.
As Kirwan’s George arrives in New York and marries Esther, it feels depressingly inevitable that their relationship will not be a happy one. As Esther frets about not revealing her illiteracy to her husband, it becomes clear that he, too, has not been honest. The romantic vision of his letters gives way to a drinking, gambling man who exploits his new wife’s good nature and accumulated savings. Wiley’s face is the show’s biggest aspect here, every ray of doubt, indecision (and, just rarely, hope) worn in ways that would be obvious if only people saw her.
In this world, the corsetry that Esther creates becomes a powerful visual metaphor. The women of this world, Esther especially, are constrained in ways that George’s freewheeling, free-loading masculinity is not. Another motif is expressed in the ornate Japanese silk that Mr Marks offers to Esther in Act I, which she then crafts into a smoking jacket for a husband who immediately discards it. That jacket comes to denote love: when given and received in a sense of mutual appreciation, it is something remarkable – but, as it changes hands when George gives it away, it becomes something far more destructive.
While Nottage’s script initially struggles to set itself up – the first scene encourages Hughes to declaim Mrs Dickson’s lines as if delivering a series of stand-up punchlines – it quickly settles down into a heartfelt piece of social, romantic drama. Wiley leads a strong cast that brings this slice of New York to vivid life, as delicate, intricate and embroidered as Japanese silk.
Continues until 9 August 2025
