THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
This play by double Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage is a wry, humane blend of comedy and sociopolitical insight, which along the way is also a hymn to the perfect gourmet sandwich!
For Clyde’s is a sandwich kitchen, mainly frequented by truckers, in the post-industrial rust belt town of Reading, Pennsylvania. What’s unique is that the staff are all ex-cons, as is Clyde herself. Played with unflinching honesty by Gbemisola Ikumelo she is a total horror. Not just bullying but terrorizing and sexually harassing her staff because she knows she can get away with it. She can always report them to probation if they displease her so the mainly black and Hispanic staff are effectively trapped and have little option to get out. As for her crime, she reportedly killed her husband during a sex game, when she forgot his ‘safe word’.
It’s an ugly watch (particularly for anyone who’s suffered bullying in the workplace) and the strategies she uses are all those of the abused turned abuser. What’s disconcerting is hearing many in the audience snigger along at her cruelty, as if she gets a pass because it’s all delivered with such diva sass.
Nottage’s writing, though, is wonderfully humane and with Lynette Linton’s pitch-perfect detailing in the direction and an ace ensemble cast they’ve fashioned five wonderfully complex, vulnerable, and frequently hilarious characters.
Donmar fans will recall Nottage’s 2015 play Sweat, set in the same town and mapping the devastating aftermath of a factory closure on the place. One of its characters, Jason, returns and is again movingly played by Patrick Gibson. A disastrous gang initiation in prison left him literally branded for life with a white supremacist face tattoo. The poetry of the piece is that each of the employees (but notably not Clyde) is seeking some sort of redemption to enable them to climb back out of the cycle of poverty and re-offending, in which they are stuck.
The great Giles Terera is Montrellous, the older and wiser of the kitchen quartet, who serves as a sort of guru for the group, defusing tensions and providing succor to these much-damaged souls. A total foodie, his dream is to upgrade the menu and he’ll often lead the others into almost mystical rhapsodies about fantasy fillings that they could try. Food for him is transcendence. Clyde of course delights in destroying all such talk.
Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ is a stand-out delight as the lively Letitia, who was jailed for stealing medication for her disabled daughter when she also took on a little sideline selling opioids. Her bubbling romance with grill-cook Rafael (Sebastian Orozco), who held up a bank with a toy gun whilst high as a kite, is quietly touching and never mawkish. Orozco brings real charm to the part.
To distract from their dull routine the quartet will often sing along to the radio or dance with their mobile food prep trolleys. This brings a delightful lightness to the whole piece and Oliver Fenwick’s lighting excels here.
Frankie Bradshaw’s design of the meticulously grimy kitchen looks so lived-in you can almost smell it, another example of what a greatly polished gem this is.
