Shakespeare Review - Intimate Apparel

The name implies romance, intimacy, intrigue. One imagines a drama of secretive rendez-vous, perfect matches and lovers embraces; but the story that unravels defies expectation.

The plot is set in the early 1900's, where a black seamstress named Esther stitches a living from pieces of silk and velvet. Her relationships run across the board from a lusty prostitute to a high-class lady client, a distant suitor from Panama, and a lonely Jewish cloth merchant; it is in these characters that the play begins to develop.

The complexities of Esther's relationships lead to the unfolding of her own character. She is an insecure and agonized seamstress, trying not to be terrified at the prospect of facing life alone. She has made her living for many years sewing intimate apparel for women; there is an ironic contrast between the beauty she creates for her clients and the ugliness she feels in herself. At age 35, Esther is afraid that she is already an old maid, and lost to any possibility of finding love. She takes comfort only in her beautiful quilt, the masterpiece of decades of sewing, within which is stitched a small fortune and a great dream - the hopes of someday owning a beauty parlor for women.

Played out perfectly by Gwendolyn Malamba, Esther is drawn into a web of longing relationships - the unrevealed attraction of her wealthy (female) client Mrs. Van Buren, the mixed messages of the cloth merchant, Mr. Marks, and the friendship of Mayme the optimistic prostitute. Above all, Esther is entranced by the attentions of a strange man from Panama who begins to woo her in his well-penned letters.