Intimate Apparel (play)

Plot

The time is 1905, the place New York City, where Esther, a black seamstress, lives in a boarding house for women and sews intimate apparel for clients who range from wealthy white patrons to black prostitutes. Her skills and discretion are much in demand, and she has managed to stuff a good sum of money into her quilt over the years. One by one, the other denizens of the boarding house marry and move away, but Esther remains, lonely and longing for a husband and a future. Her plan is to find the right man and use the money she's saved to open a beauty parlor where black women will be treated as royally as the white women she sews for. By way of a mutual acquaintance, she begins to receive beautiful letters from a lonesome Caribbean man named George Armstrong who is working on the Panama Canal. Being illiterate, Esther has one of her patrons respond to the letters, and over time the correspondence becomes increasingly intimate until George persuades her that they should marry, sight unseen. Meanwhile, Esther's heart seems to lie with the Hasidic shopkeeper from whom she buys fabric, and his heart with her, but the impossibility of the match is obvious to them both, and Esther consents to marry George. When George arrives in New York, however, he turns out not to be the man his letters painted him to be, and he absconds with Esther's savings, frittering it away on whores, liquor, and gambling. Deeply wounded by the betrayal, but somehow unbroken, Esther returns to the boarding house determined to use her gifted hands and her sewing machine to refashion her dreams and make them anew from the whole cloth of her life's experiences. The final stage directions reveal that Esther is also pregnant.

The play is based on the life of Nottage's great-grandmother.

Critical response

The CurtainUp reviewer of the 2004 production at the Mark Taper Forum wrote: "...the lyric and powerful expressive writing of playwright Lynn Nottage. She's an actor's gift with sly one-syllable humorous punch words; poetic paintings of physical and emotional landscapes; dramatic conflict that pulls no punches and is not afraid to make sympathetic characters unsympathetic; and an intimate knowledge of loneliness and passion."

The reviewer for The New York Times of a 2010 production at the Two River Theatre Company (Red Bank, New Jersey), wrote: "If you’ve seen Ms. Nottage’s 'Ruined,' about Congolese women in wartime,... no introduction is necessary. If you haven’t, you need only look at Ms. Nottage’s accumulation of other awards... to know that hers is a rare, vital, important theatrical voice. 'Intimate Apparel,' which had its Off Broadway run in 2004, is her best-known work... The Two River production, expertly directed by Seret Scott, shows off its multiple facets: a rich, vivid portrait of turn-of-the-last-century New York; a feminist lament of intelligent, talented women defined and controlled by men; a soft-focus glimpse into the beating hearts behind the archives of African-American life a century ago." It was listed among the 40 best plays ever written in The Independent.

Awards and nominations

The play won the 2004 Steinberg New Play Award, presented by The American Theatre Critics Association to "outstanding new plays produced around the United States, outside of New York City".

Drama Desk Awards (2004)

• Outstanding Actress in a Play – Viola Davis (win, tie)
• Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play – Corey Stoll (nomination)

Outer Critics Circle Awards (2004)

• Outstanding Off-Broadway Play (win)
• John Gassner Award – Lynn Nottage (win)
• Outstanding Actress in a Play - Viola Davis (nomination)
• Outstanding Director of a Play (nomination)
• Outstanding Costume Design of a Play – Catherine Zuber (nomination)

Lucille Lortel Awards (2005)

• Outstanding Set Design – Derek McLane (win)
• Outstanding Costume Design – Catherine Zuber (win)
• Outstanding Play (nomination)
• Outstanding Director (nomination)
• Outstanding Lead Actress – Viola Davis (nomination)

Obie Award (2003–04)

• Performance - Viola Davis (win)
• Set Design - Derek McLane (win)

Adaptation

An operatic adaptation of the play with a libretto by Lynn Nottage, music by Ricky Ian Gordon, and direction by Bartlett Sher began Off-Broadway previews February 27, 2020. The production was suspended before opening due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The production resumed previews in January of 2022 before officially opening on January 31 of that year.