Lynn Nottage’s 2003 play explores what you hold close and who you are when your defences are down. In 1905 New York, Esther, a skilled Black corset-maker, creates ravishing undergarments in Wedgwood blue or salmon pink, trimmed with “every manner of accoutrement”. Stitching romance for others, she fears she will never know her own – until George begins writing from Panama, where he is labouring on the canal.
Tucked into her modest, mouse-grey dress, Samira Wiley’s Esther embroiders dreams with every letter. Despite forebodings from her landlady (Nicola Hughes, plush and beady), she insists: “I am his sweetheart twice a month and I can fill that envelope with anything I want.” Kadiff Kirwan’s melodious, greedy-eyed George arrives in New York and the first act ends on the edge of hope. Later, disappointment settles: intimacies fray, promises prove moth-eaten.
Foot on the treadle, eye on the lace, Esther knows her worth. Nottage writes so well about work: the painstaking immersion of time, thought and effort. The audience, fully invested in Esther’s world, gasped when George tossed aside her tailoring: how callous to spurn a love-stitched jacket. Wiley’s fragile frame can barely hold the hurt.
Esther’s clients are unmarried, or yoked without love. Intimacy seems possible in your scanties: Faith Omole’s sex worker and Claudia Jolly’s wealthy wife tumble out confidences as she tweaks their corsets. Esther also visits a Jewish fabric salesman (Alex Waldmann, beautifully tentative), tenderly scanning swathes of kingfisher silk or wool spun from cosseted Scottish sheep. Restrictive garments play against unbounded imaginings.
Nottage’s writing in the two-handed scenes is palpably lush (“a gentle touch is gold in any country”), but each line sharpens a character or sighs the tale forward. Working with movement directorShelley Maxwell, Lynette Linton’s production becomes a dance, a poem: bodies swoop around one another, voices tangle in song, teasing out the sensuality these New Yorkers crave but must deny themselves.
The acting is incredibly fine: Linton’s great gift is to see people from every angle. Nottage’s play began when she found a photo of her seamstress great-grandmother and wanted to imagine her story. This tremendous production and Wiley’s superb performance fill out a life unknown.
AtDonmar Warehouse, London, until 9 August