By Julie-Anne Whitney
Sweat – Written by Lynn Nottage; Directed by Kimberly Senior; Scenic Design by Cameron Anderson; Costume Design by Junghyun Georgia Lee; Lighting Design by D.M. Wood; Original Music and Sound Design by Pornchanok Kanchanabanca; fight choreography by Ted Hewlett; stage managed by Emily F. McMullen. Produced by the Huntington Theatre Company at 264 Huntington Avenue through March 1, 2020.
In 2011, intrigued by the news that Reading, Pennsylvania (population 88,000) was named the poorest city per capita in America, playwright Lynn Nottage went to Berks County in search of a story. Throughout the next two years, she interviewed dozens of factory employees, business owners, social workers, members of law enforcement, and government officials. These interviews inspired Nottage to write her Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Sweat, which offers a transparent, unflinching view of what can happen to communities when powerful corporations prioritize profits over people.
While the characters in Sweat are fictional, the issues they face are real. When the local steel factory starts enforcing pay cuts and layoffs to push out the Union members, the factory employees experience immediate and long standing hardships. Friendships are tested, morals are questioned, relationships are broken, jobs and homes are lost. A close-knit group of friends starts to unravel, and a chain reaction of fear, mistrust, jealousy, and rage takes over the community.
Most of the play’s scenes are set in the neighborhood bar where locals meet to commiserate about work, family, money, and politics. But the bar is not just a meeting place, it is a safe space where people can relax, let loose, and just be themselves. Cameron Anderson’s scenic design perfectly exemplifies the deterioration of the town and its citizens with shabby, dilapidated rooms that seem not to have changed for decades. The bar is a dark, bulky space with wood paneling, stained windows, scuffed floors, leather stools, a dusty jukebox, cheap ashtrays, and beer ads hanging next to the American flag. It may be a bit run down, but it is home.
Regular visitors to the bar include Cynthia (Tyla Abercrumbie), a powerhouse black woman whose hard work and determination earn her a promotion from the factory floor to the management office; her son, Chris (Brandon G. Green), a sincere, purposeful young man with dreams of leaving the factory and becoming a teacher; Cynthia’s ex-husband, Brucie (Alvin Keith) who, having been locked out of his union job for more than two years, has lost himself to drugs and alcohol; Cynthia’s best friend, Tracey (Jennifer Regan), a bold and brazen white woman who has been working on the factory floor since she was 19; Tracey’s incorrigible son, Jason (Shane Kenyon), whose anger and resentment leads him to commit a vicious act of violence; Cynthia and Tracey’s colleague, Jessie (Marianna Bassham), who sadly drinks her way through loneliness; and of course the ever-wise bartender, Stan (Guy Van Swearingen), and his dedicated barback, Oscar (Tommy Rivera-Vega), a quiet but indelible presence in nearly every scene.
It would be a disservice to this outstanding ensemble (which includes Maurice Emmanuel Parent as Evan, the unflappable probation officer) and the great work they do together to praise only one or two people. Regardless of the amount of time they spend on stage or the number of lines they have, each one of these actors gives a commanding, grounded, moving performance and they should all be applauded for their commitment to this deeply challenging and emotional work.
Director Kimberly Senior masterfully builds, suspends, and expands the tension throughout the play with moments of stillness and breathlessness followed by rapid action and rampant activity. Ted Hewlett’s character-driven fight choreography is seamlessly woven into Senior’s staging and, at one moment, felt so real that it elicited audible gasps from the audience.
Sweat is
about ordinary Americans living in an extraordinary time. While Reading,
Pennsylvania may be a small town, it represents a larger population of
citizens. Poverty, unemployment, lack of education, sexism, racism, crime,
alcoholism, drug addiction, violence– this is America. But, as the play
rightly reminds us: we can make it better – we just have to do it together. We
have to listen to each other, trust each other, stand up for each other, and
take care of each other because, as Oscar states in the play’s final line,
“that’s how it oughta be.” For tickets and information, go to: https://www.huntingtontheatre.org/
