Customer Reviews

Intimate Apparel - Acting Edition

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3 star:		(1)
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Born in 1964 Brooklyn, Lynn Nottage is an up-and-coming playwright whose works generally mingle the African-American experience with a feminist point of view. To date her single best-known work is the 2003 play INTIMATE APPAREL, a play about 1900-era seamstress Esther.

Self-concious about her plainess and socially insecure even among her own class, Esther dreams of romance and marriage while earning her living by creating beautiful undergarments for a clientel that ranges from rich and disillusioned white women to hard-knocks prostitutes. Along the way she also falls in love with a fabric dealer, and he with her--but racial and religious taboos render the relationship impossible.

Esther consequently turns to romance-by-mail, writing and receiving letters from a laborer at work on the Panama Canal--a romance complicated by the fact that she can neither read nor write and must rely on friends to assist her. But when Esther ultimately marries her man-by-mail, she quickly discovers that he is not what seemed to be, and the play ends in a series of complications that have the effect of returning Esther to square one in more ways than one.

INTIMATE APPAREL is most successful as a character study and as a portrait of the era in which Esther lives; Nottage is a remarkably graceful writer and successfully evocative of tremendous poignancy. At the same time, however, INTIMATE APPAREL strikes me as the sort of play that receives glowing reviews and goes on to play to half-empty houses: although the characters are brilliantly rendered, the actual story is somewhat weak, and it seems to lack dramatic depth and purpose. But Nottage is most certainly a writer to watch, and I'm betting this is far from the best she has to offer in the future.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I was lucky enough to have played a character in this play with one of the local theaters in my community. I played Mayme, the world weary prostitute, customer and fair weather friend of the lead character, Esther. When I first read this script,I thought it was beautifully written and I felt the characters were well developed. We played to packed houses and received glowing reviews. In fact, the young lady who played Esther in our production won a best actress award at the local level. I think that Lynn Nottage's play is a wonderful theatrical piece and I am honored to have been apart of it. I encourage others to not only read the play but see a production of it; I guarantee you will not regret it.

I have a slightly negative view of this play because I recently saw it performed horribly. It does not have a lot of action, but it is not a bad script, it just needs to be performed and directed well.

This play is centers around an African-America woman in her thirties in the early 1900s. She is a seamstress and sews under garments for well off ladies in New york.

This is a play that makes you think about the intricacies of relationships. All of the characters want what they can't have and it creates tension that builds and builds throughout the play.

There is a some sexual content and lesbian curiosity, but it is not over the top and it furthers the story.

It is a pretty good play and I would recommend it and other plays by this author. I have read two of her plays and she creates wonderful worlds full of complex characters.

I needed this book for a class last minute, I got it in great condition and pretty fast. I would definitely do business again!