Lynn Nottage’s mouthwatering, gloriously performed play inhabits an unprepossessing Pennsylvania sandwich shop which Clyde runs on fear. Mean as a buzzsaw, Gbemisola Ikumelo’s buttock-pummelling terror bobs up at the service window without warning – like Jaws but much, much scarier.
The sour joke is that Clyde herself has no interest in food. Hauling in meats of dubious provenance (“You know my policy. If it ain’t brown or grey, it can be fried”), she scorns hope or the possibility of change. Don’t even mention garnish.
Deep in debt to yet meaner dudes, the cleaver that Clyde wields over her staff is that they’re all ex-felons in a harsh employment market: the play shares a rustbelt location with Nottage’s desolate 2015 play Sweat. Step up or step out is the only choice. “Speak the truth, then let go and cook,” kitchen guru Montrellous counsels, but it isn’t easy. Everyone carries prison shadows with them.
Giles Terera brings delicious gravity to Montrellous, the sensei of sourdough, crowning his creations with a mic drop of dill. Perhaps he defies credibility – someone speculates he went to prison on principle, which isn’t untrue. His colleagues – honeyed Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjó and limber Sebastian Orozco – are captivated. Jason the newbie (Patrick Gibson), inked with white-supremacist tatts, initially flouts the rules (“Now you disrespecting the lettuce!”) before joining the quest to rebuild self-respect and achieve the perfect sandwich.
Eat before you go, or the riffs on fantasy fillings will rumble your belly. Clyde’s gets tang from its talk while conflict adds crunch, but is it perhaps too soft, too sweet? Nottage’s writing slathers on the metaphors: a democratic snack that can be scorned or elevated, the sandwich becomes a readymade image of broken America.
Lynette Linton’s production, however, is all yum. An actors’ director, her special sauce may be avid attention. With movement director Kane Husbands, she enables involving performances of mustardy detail, amid a buzz of deft activity. Peppers are sliced, iceberg scattered, mayo squeezed with finesse.
With its tasty repartee and redemptive mouthfeel, Clyde’s may not be Nottage’s most profound play, but you see why it was America’s most-produced drama last season. Linton’s production, like Montrellous’s grilled cheese, lifts into the sublime.
Clyde’s is at Donmar Warehouse until 2 December
