‘Intimate Apparel’ @ Theatre Three

Photos by Jeffrey Schmidt

Jan Farrington

The characters on the stage freeze in place at two moments of the play—each time for a photograph that seems taken by history itself. The first caption overhead reads “Unidentified Negro Couple, ca. 1905;” the second, “Unidentified Negro Seamstress, ca. 1905.”

We are left to consider how a gifted playwright can bring the past so vividly, achingly to life that we may find it impossible to forget these “unidentified” humans of a long-ago New York.

Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel is my favorite among her extraordinary plays—which also include Ruined and Sweat, both winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Somehow, though, this was my first time to see Apparel onstage. And the strong production now at Theatre Three (directed by Anyika McMillan-Herod) does exactly what it should do: take Nottage’s splendidly imagined story from sepia tones to full color.

Esther (played by Kimberly Nicole) came to Manhattan as a teenage “country gal” from the Carolinas. Today is her 35th birthday, and her 18th year of living in a small room she rents from Mrs. Dickson (Catherine Whiteman). Laughter and music are coming from a “social” downstairs, the kind of event the landlady hosts to bring respectable “colored” men and women together (object: matrimony).

But slim, prim Esther is hard at work, pumping the foot treadle of her sewing machine, adding frills and feathers to a richly embellished corset. It’s just part of the gorgeous and intimate apparel she makes for her eager clients, who range from actresses to socialites to “working girls” in the downtown brothels. Esther is an artist, and all about pretty things—but she doesn’t think she’s one of them, and has just about given up hope of a marriage and family.

Then, a letter from far away falls into her lap—from workingman George (Corey Pratt) in Panama, who is part of the crew digging the Canal. A fellow worker is a member of Esther’s church, and George says “it would be nice to have someone to think about…I ask if I could write you?” Pratt “speaks” George’s letters (in a rich Barbados accent) from various high corners of the T3 arena theater space. He’s dressed like the romantic dream of a gentleman adventurer (costume by Jasmine Woods)…and we and Esther are swept along on the hope of a good, handsome man who can change her life.

Esther believes her design and sewing skills are a gift from God. One of her appreciative customers is Evangeline Van Buren (Jessica D. Turner), a white opera singer who married rich—and who takes an interest in Esther’s love life. Another is her longtime friend Mayme (Tayla Underwood), a Black prostitute who also is a talented writer/performer of ragtime tunes. (The two friends—Nicole and Underwood create a playful, caring relationship—do an R-rated, high-spirited song together.) Both Mayme and Mrs. Van Buren are dealing with men they don’t much like, though in very different corners of society.

As you’d expect, Esther loves beautiful fabric and what she can make of it. Mr. Marks (Thomas Leverton), a striving and lonely Jewish cloth dealer, feeds her love of beauty by saving special pieces for his “favorite customer”—this one of Japanese silk woven for royalty, that one of Scottish wool from little lambs kissed every morning. He knows, she knows, and we know their attraction can’t go anywhere…but Nottage gives it a beauty that is crafted of quiet, careful words and small actions that bring us almost to the edge of tears.

Nicole’s anchoring performance—she gives fragile-seeming Esther a strong spirit, a streak of humor, and a remarkable mix of dreaminess and determination—centers the show. But props as well to a talented cast and director for strong performances all around; each character has a life and a history that impacts Esther and engages our emotions.

We grieve for Mayme’s lively spirit; she was punished for it at home, and then caught in a life she never wanted. We see that rough-hewn, manipulative George isn’t the man from his letters (he paid someone to write them), but as he says, “that don’t mean I ain’t feel them t’ings.” We’re sad for Mrs. Van Buren, who isn’t a good fit for her life—and turns to Esther for a little happiness. We feel for the honorable but passionate Mr. Marks, alone in a new land. And we admire Mrs. Dickson, who married an old man who owned a boarding house, and put her good fortune to work. (Esther says she’s married off 22 young ladies who boarded with her over the years.) Mrs. D knows what people are, what the world is, but somehow, her good heart is still beating.

Nicholas Thornburg’s scenic design (the black floor is chalked with imaginary pattern pieces) lets scenes flow easily from Esther’s room to Marks’ shop, Mrs. Van Buren’s boudoir, and Mayme’s place of business (bed and piano keeping close company). Lighting designer Nicole Ianaccone smoothly directs our eyes, and intimacy director Sasha Maya Ada seems to know all the ways a kiss or a touch can go right, wrong, or just sideways; the details are very well done.

When YouTube shows us a bit of restored film of people walking the streets of Paris or New York in 1900, we wonder who they are, where they’re going, what they hope for from their lives. Lynn Nottage, and this fine cluster of actors and creatives at T3, have brought us into some of those everyday lives: long over and entirely unsung—but quite extraordinary all the same.

WHEN: March 27-April 20, 2025
WHERE: Theatre Three, 2688 Laclede Street, Dallas
WEB: theatre3dallas.com