Arvada – Rarely does a performance work on you so insidiously that by evening’s end you are invested in every aspect of a character’s past, present and future. That only begins to describe Debbie Johnson Lee’s understated triumph in “Intimate Apparel,” an earnest 1905 slice-of-life tale of a poor and uneducated black woman, now enjoying a winning regional premiere at the Arvada Center.
On the surface, “Intimate Apparel” is a frothy soaper of a tale with predictable melodramatic twists, but its lack of surprise doesn’t matter a thimbleful because of the lyrical way in which it is written by Lynn Nottage and conducted with the synchronicity of a ragtime ballet by director Jane Page.
A superb cast, clever set concept and fancy period undergarments that would knock the socks off a New York fashion runway all contribute to a stellar evening of theater. And only later does its more complicated sociological context emerge.
Esther (Lee) is a seamstress who makes corsets for New York society dames and hookers alike. Though she has been stashing money for 18 years with the dream of opening her own beauty parlor, she craves a lover’s touch far more. But at 35, her work ethic and strict adherence to a Victorian moral code more constrictive than her corsets seem to have doomed her to spinsterhood.
At 35, Esther’s only long-shot possibilities are handsome fabric salesman (and Orthodox Jew) Mr. Marks (Neil Necastro Jr.), and an epistolary suitor named George (Kennedy Reilly-Pugh), a laborer she has met only through the letters he sends while working on the Panama Canal. When faced with a choice between the forbidden and the unknown, Esther agrees to marry George sight unseen.
Esther’s race, illiteracy, economic status and lack of physical beauty are not only what make her a wholly original and achingly human stage heroine. When her values collide with a desperate longing, her judgment is often terrible.
While her plot at times grows frothy, Nottage’s greatest touch is in her subtle expression of touch. That Esther belongs with Marks is palpably evident through their mutual appreciation for the touch of silk. This touch seems so transferable to the human skin, but that would be taboo. She has never known a man’s touch; he is forbidden from touching a woman not his wife. They are both committed to lovers they have never met, which conspires to make them perfect partners in repression.
But after George is (predictably) revealed to be a lout, Esther revisits Mr. Marks and simply touches the back of his coat. In this forbidden act of courageous tenderness, Esther bursts through a centuries-old barrier to connect with a human being whose coat may as well be a suit of armor around his heart.
Terrific supporting characters and vapors-inducing bad behavior keep the audience lustily involved throughout. Reilly-Pugh holds his own, having to swing from a sweet-writing Cyrano to a regrettably severe villain. Far more interesting are Esther’s relationships with three women: the boarding-house matron who has nurtured her for 17 years (Wendelin Harston); her unapologetic hooker pal Mayme (a breathtaking Natalie Oliver-Atherton, whose singing and strutting are hotter than Houston); and the great Josephine Hall as Esther’s rich client Mrs. Van Buren, a sexually unfulfilled dilettante whose only thrill comes from penning Esther’s letters to George.
Joseph J. Egan outdoes himself with a deceptively simple elevated stage floor that’s marked by the cutting line of a cloth sewing pattern, creating five distinct playing areas stitched together by an interconnectedness of these lives.
The play’s final tiny moment is one of its most meaningful, providing all the subtle evidence one needs of Esther’s ascendance from victim to heroine. First one must have a dream, then decide how much one is willing to give up – and withstand – to attain it.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
*** 1/2 | “Intimate Apparel”
DRAMA|Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd.|Written by Lynn Nottage|Directed by Jane Page|Starring Debbie Johnson Lee, Kennedy Reilly-Pugh, Josephine Hall, Natalie Oliver-Arherton, Neil Necastro Jr. and Wendelin Harston|THROUGH OCT. 2|7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 1 p.m. Wednesdays, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays|2 hours, 35 minutes|$32-$42|720-898-7200 or arvadacenter.org
