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.
