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In her 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Lynn Nottage followed an effective method of storytelling: If you want a better idea of the big picture, look at the small pictures. Using nothing more than a bar and a parole office, she gives us a great number of insights about what the heck is going on with 21st-century America.
Under director ShawnJ West, the Players gave an excellent ensemble performance, rough enough to reflect the dozens of real-life worker interviews that fueled the play’s creation. The setting is Reading, Pennsylvania, the year 2000, at a time when a local factory, Olmstead’s Steel Tubing, is headed for potential layoffs, or even a closure.
On the personal level, best friends Tracey and Cynthia, both longtime floor workers, have both decided to apply for a manager’s position, which is rarely given to factory veterans. When Cynthia gets the job, everybody in their local watering hole is ecstatic, but not for long. Tracey, worn down by years of mind-numbing work and single parenthood, cultivates a growing resentment, blaming the hiring choice on Cynthia’s being Black (“but I’m not prejudiced”). Amy Meyers invests the part with a captivating intensity, ditching her party girl exterior for a hatred that grows and grows.
As Cynthia, Kimberly Ridgeway conveys a core of calm strength, refined by years of dealing with bigotry, harassment and her unstable husband, Brucie (Anthony Haynes), who keeps trying and failing to escape his addictions. Cynthia enjoys the rewards of her new position, but feels increasing pressure to take her former coworkers’ side in an upcoming lockout when she simply can’t. She also begins to suspect that management actually hired her to do their dirty work.
A parallel plot comes with an excellent piece of manipulation by Nottage. A prologue brings us to a 2008 parole office staffed by Evan, played with grit and morbid humor by director West. Tracey and Cynthia’s sons, Jason and Chris, have just gotten out of jail after some horrible incident that occurred in 2000. Will Livingston gives face-tattooed Jason an undercurrent of rage, as if he can’t bear to live in his own skin. Adam C. Torrian plays Chris from a more thoughtful point of view, intelligent and searching.
Given that setup, it’s easier to see, in the boisterous young men of 2000, the recklessness of Jason’s party boy attitude and the wisdom of Chris’s college ambitions. It’s easy to see both of their natures as an inheritance from their mothers. And it’s easy to see another candidate for scapegoat in Oscar, the Colombian barback, who battles his own history of ostracism by crossing the picket line after a company lockout. Aaron Edejer plays the role with a quiet seriousness, amazing for this, his stage debut.
The peacemakers in the group are Stan (Scott Solomon), the bartender, and Jessie (Tannis Hanson) the third-wheel friend. Both of them play pivotal roles in a stunning outcome.
Nottage’s play does a brilliant job of unearthing so much about what’s really plaguing our country. It’s an intense two and a half hours, but it might help you to understand your more disagreeable friends — the nuances of their motivations. And the way that the rich and powerful constantly fool us into turning against each other.
The Palo Alto Players present “Sweat” through June 29 at the Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. $20-$63. 650-329-0891. paplayers.org
