On Broadway- Sweat

Sweat by Lynn Nottage

More than a few years ago, I saw a wonderful play by Lynn Nottage, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark. It was a remarkable play, one that I never forgot. When I saw the ads for another play by Nottage, Sweat, I knew I had to see it.

And when Nottage won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for drama for Sweat, I ran to get a ticket. Set in Reading, Pennsylvania in 2000 and 2008, Nottage takes on the topic of factories closing in small cities and what that does to the town and the people who worked there.

Most of the action takes place in a bar, where we meet Cynthia, Tracie and Jessie, celebrating a birthday in 2000. Times are pretty good, the ladies are having a good time, dancing and drinking until Cynthia's troubled estranged husband shows up. His union has been on strike for years, and it has turned him inside out.

Cynthia's son Chris and Tracie's son Jason also work at the factory, although Chris wants to save his money to go to college to become a teacher, which Chris and bar manager Stan scoff at. Why give up a steady job, good pay, health insurance and more to teach?

The good times don't last. There are rumblings that the factory may move to Mexico because of NAFTA, and that leaves these people without many options.

Nottage takes on class, race, immigration, friendship, loyalty and much more in this powerful, searing drama that left me shaken and shaking at the end. Although set in 2000 and 2008, and written well before the election of 2016, Sweat resonates like nothing I've seen since The Normal Heart.

She provokes thought and emotion in the rapt audience. You could literally hear people breathing, it was so quiet in the theater.

All the performances are astonishing, with Johanna Day, Michelle Wilson and Krhis Davis particular standouts. Alison Wright, who is having quite a career now, first as Martha in FX's The Americans and as Pauline in FX's Feud: Bette and Joan, has a smaller role as Jessie, but she makes the most of it.

Nottage brings these people to vivid life, and helps us to understand why people feel left behind in this economy. Things changed too fast for them, and caught them by surprise. Everything they thought would continue has gone away, for many different reasons.

I got a discount ticket to Sweat, but this is a show I would gladly pay full-price to see.

Watching Sweat put me in mind of ABC's brilliant drama, John Ridley's American Crime, which this season deals with similiar themes- people who are in bad situations, often not of their doing. They feel disposable. If you haven't watched it, stream it. It is very sad, but must-see TV.

By the Way, Meet Vera Stark

Sanaa Lathan as Vera Stark

2econdStageTheatre's new production, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is the latest play by Lynn Nottage, who won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2009 for Ruined.


Ruined was a very heavy drama, and Meet Vera Stark has more of a comedic touch- at least during the first act. Vera is an African- American maid working for actress Gloria Mitchell (the wonderful Stephanie J. Block), once America's little princess, now desperately trying to hold on to her career in the 1930s.

Vera, played by the luminous and brilliant Sanaa Lathan, is an actress too, but parts for her are more difficult to come by. And the only ones available are for maids or slaves. When Gloria auditions for a big Southern epic (ala Gone With the Wind), Vera sees an opportunity for her to play the important role of the maid/best friend to the protagonist, and asks Gloria to help her, which Gloria brushes aside.

It is hinted that Vera and Gloria have a closer relationship than employer-employee, and that is developed more deeply in Act II. Act I is more of screwball comedy from the 1930s or 40s, with gorgeous dresses, the helpless, self-involved star, an African-American friend of Vera's (the versatile, funny and gorgeous Karen Olivo) passing herself off as a Brazilian actress to date the director of the movie, Kimberly Hebert Gregory playing a friend of Vera's who frequently breaks into a version of "Let My People Go", and Vera exaggeratedly acting the part of the subservient Southern maid to get the role in the movie.

I saw the show with an audience filled with high school students, and they enthusiastically reacted, laughing and applauding at the action on the stage. They especially liked Gregory's performance, perhaps because they know women just like her sassy character.


Act II has a much more serious tone. It is present day and three academics discuss Vera Stark's career. They review Vera's last appearance in 1973 on The Ben Donovan Show (think Mike Douglas/Merv Griffin). The show-within-a-play is an intriguing concept, and it works well here.

Vera is much older, and Lathan is remarkable in this Act. She plays a defiant, tough, possibly drunk  Vera in Act II, as opposed to the sunny, lively, younger Vera from Act I.


We see how difficult it was for Vera to find good work after her breakout role, and when Gloria shows up, the contrast between their lives and careers is stark. The only difference between them is their skin color, but that difference made all the difference in Vera's life. We learn more about Gloria and Vera's past connection as the academics debate about what really happened to Vera Stark.

The play is brilliantly written by Nottage, who transitions from comedy to drama to great effect. It has a lot to say about what it meant to be black in America at that time, and the price one pays in deciding whether to or not to be true to oneself.


The roles for women in this play are layered and rich and,  Lathan, Block, Gregory and Olivo make the most of them, with Gregory and Olivo playing multiple, diverse roles. The use of film in the show is well done, as we get to see part of the film, The Belle of New Orleans, at the center of this story.


I would say that By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is a nearly-perfect piece of theater. It succeeds on so many levels, and leaves you with much to contemplate as you leave the theater. It runs through May 29th at 2econdStageTheatre on 43rd & 8th Ave. If you love good theater, do not miss this one.