Review: INTIMATE APPAREL at Kansas City Actors' Theatre

The year is 1905.  The place is New York City. The play is Lynn Nottage’s intimate and surprisingly affective comedy/drama “Intimate Apparel.” “Intimate Apparel” tells a tale drawn from Nottage’s own passed down ancestry stories and perhaps a little imagined history.  The inspiration is a sepia toned photo of a seamstress from the turn of the twentieth-century.

The lights come up on Esther Mills (Chioma Anyanwu), a thirty-six-year-old gifted seamstress, who has carved out a niche business for herself designing and creating intimate apparel for a widely diverse customer base.  Esther’s customers represent both the upper crust of New York’s society, the 400, and others who populate the raunchy Tenderloin district and whose less public clientele are the bored husbands of society’s 400.     

Esther lives and works in a respectable rooming house owned by a black widow named Mrs. Dickson (Lynn A. King). We also meet both sides of Esther’s customer base, her through the mail friend, and her kind goods supplier. 

Mrs. Van Buren (Allison F. Rich), is a white, bored, dissatisfied, Victorian era socialite who is a desperately lonely wife from the Park Avenue side of Esther’s business. Mayme (Teonna Wesley), another customer, is a sporting lady from the Tenderloin area and a talented pianist and composer.   

It becomes evident that the garments Esther makes are superior to the old Singer pedal driven sewing machine she pumps.  Esther has lived in Mrs. Dickson’s rooming house for two decades refining her craft.  She has carefully saved her money over the years and stores the proceeds in an old patchwork quilt that covers her bed. 

Esther comes from farm workers in the Carolinas and headed North to make her fortune.  She approaches middle age with no serious prospects for marriage or children.  Esther thinks herself plain.  Her life goal is to put together enough money to open an independent beauty salon.

Esther cannot read.  She is ashamed by this lack, but Esther has developed something more important than simple literacy.   

She has developed empathy.  Esther is that person with whom everyone can share and likewise is able to be open with her friends, colleagues, and customers. 

Mrs. Dickson worries about her favorite tenant.  She would like to see her married and happy.

One day a letter from a man arrives at the rooming house.  The man has been referred by one of the church elders at Esther’s home place.  He is George Armstrong (David Sadzin), a Barbadian laborer working on the Panama Canal.

He seems too good to be true. Since Esther can neither read nor write, others must help compose her replies. The correspondence becomes shortly courtly.  It seems pleasant enough to Esther’s customers. Esther believes that this may be her only chance at a relationship.

Esther’s other relationship is Mr. Marks (Joe Serrano), an elderly Romanian Jewish cloth merchant from whom Esther purchases all her raw materials.  Mr. Marks is happy for Esther but disappointed with himself.

It is almost as if Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof” has settled into Manhattan as a yard goods merchant.  

One senses a true connection between these individuals even if an intimate relationship between them in 1905 would require a leap over the tallest building and a run quicker than the fastest train.

Mrs. Dickson smells a rat in this Mr. Armstrong. He shows up in New York, marries Esther, takes her money, and disappears.  Worse, his Saturday night lady turns out to be Esther’s friend, Mayme.   

Mrs. Van Buren has misinterpreted their friendship.  She cannot leave her husband, and plants a big kiss on Esther’s lips. Both are horrified.  They jointly backtrack faster than a couple of teenage street racers on a Saturday night.

“Intimate Apparel” is a talky play.  Revealing conversations happen while someone is being measured or while yard goods are being purchased.  Otherwise carefully guarded secrets become open to discussion.

This production is impeccably cast and well directed by Teresa Monique Leggard.  The director’s vision is well executed.  I cannot imagine any New York cast doing a better job with this excellent material.

The play’s most affecting relationship is the restrained friendship between Esther and Mr. Marks, the Orthodox Jewish fabric merchant. Their shared appreciation of fine cloth permits an intimacy that the social and religious boundaries of the period will not allow them to express openly.

A simple scene involving a beautiful piece of Japanese silk becomes charged with feeling. A touch that would be insignificant in another play carries enormous weight here. Nottage understands that repression can create its own dramatic language. What Esther and Mr. Marks cannot say becomes more moving than any conventional declaration of love.

Tender, perceptive and quietly devastating, Intimate Apparel is a play about people separated by the very conventions meant to hold society together.

Like Esther’s finest work, the play is delicately made, closely observed and stronger than it first appears.

I continue to be impressed with the Kansas City Actors Theatre.  It is value for your entertainment dollars.

“Intimate Apparel” continues through August 23 on the City Stage on the lower level of Union Station. I encourage you not to miss it.

Photos by Kansas City Actors Theatre

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