We live in a time when the need to attract an ever-dwindling audience to live theater often leads to a company programming the latest Hollywood-style spectacle or musical adaptation of a well-known movie or television series. It’s either that or the old tried-and-true and very familiar. Shakespeare, anyone?
It’s good to be reminded every now and then of the power of simple, original storytelling to engage an audience and to encourage its production. So it is with Mercury Theater’s presentation of Lynn Nottage’s turn of the 20th-century drama Intimate Apparel. The show runs in Petaluma through Sept. 13.
Nottage has woven a tale of longing, love and loss set in the world of seamstress Esther Mills (Noell Webber). Esther is a hard-working woman who’s found success crafting beautiful undergarments that appeal to both ladies of high society like Mrs. Van Buren (Maddi Scarbrough) and ladies of the evening like Mayme (Mercedes Murphy). Esther’s dream is to open a beauty salon for Black women, and she has saved all of her income for 17 years to do so. She also dreams of marrying one day.
That dream becomes possible after she begins a correspondence with George Armstrong (Isiah Carter), a Barbadian man working on the Panama Canal. He heard about Esther from a co-worker and reached out. Esther, unable to read or write, seeks assistance from Mrs. Van Buren in maintaining the correspondence.
The courtship by mail continues till George arrives in America. They are soon married, and their dream life together begins. Reality quickly sets in.
While the basic plot may sound familiar, Nottage subtly injects elements that give the piece a richness and depth that gives us a better understanding of the life and opportunities (or lack thereof) for a young, unmarried Black woman in post-Civil War, pre-Civil Rights America.
It’s actor Leontyne Mbele-Mbong’s second directorial effort, and she shows a deft hand, faltering only with some questionable blocking choices for one character’s first act entrances.
Webber is absolutely heartbreaking as Esther. Carter continues to display why he’s one of the finest young actors working in the area today. Murphy and Scarbrough both give very layered performances. Good character work is done by John Browning as a Hasidic cloth merchant with whom Esther has a deep but impossible to explore connection and Layce Lynne Kieu as a busybody boardinghouse proprietor.
Intimate Apparel is a quiet drama that deserves the noise that comes from the applause of an appreciative audience.
Mercury Theater presents ‘Intimate Apparel’ through Sept. 13 at 3333 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. Thur–Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. $20–$35. 707.658.9019. mercurytheater.org.
