Intimate Apparel

by Lynn Nottage

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 31 July 2025

Lynette Linton directs Samira Wiley as Esther, a Black New York seamstress, Nicola Hughes as her landlady and employer Mrs Dickson, Faith Omole as her friend Mayme, Kadiff Kirwan as her suitor and husband George, Claudia Jolly as Mrs Van Buren, a wealthy client, and Alex Waldmann as Mr Marks, a Jewish fabric merchant, in Lynn Nottage's play Intimate Apparel, set in 1905 and loosely inspired by the career of her own great-grandmother.

Skilled dressmaking was a respectable occupation for poor women who valued their reputation, and Esther hopes one day to set up a beauty salon using the carefully hoarded savings from her exquisite corset-making, as she is much in demand by the likes of Mrs Van Buren. An alternative source of livelihood is represented by Mayme who works in a brothel. Out of the blue Esther receives a letter from George who is working on the construction of the Panama Canal and has heard of Esther through a mutual acquaintance from the parish church of her childhood home. As she is 35 and fearful of being a lifelong spinster she responds through the good graces of Mrs Van Buren (as she is illiterate herself) and a charming correspondence flourishes as the couple gradually gain confidence in one another. But marriage, when it comes, brings perhaps inevitable disillusionment as Esther loses her hard-won autonomy and George, whose own letter-writing was also aided by someone else, proves less loving than she hoped. A very subdued flirtation with Mr Marks is hemmed in by her shyness and the social customs of his faith, but is channelled through their shared enthusiasm for fine fabrics.

The characters and themes could so easily be stereotypical but Nottage's dialogue is supple and nuanced, the insight into the the appreciation of fabric and style completely assured and convincing, and the situations resonant with carefully observed emotional weight. Esther, the focal point of the play, is long-suffering and often almost inarticulate but Samira Wiley invests her with a quiet steeliness which receives the blows to her expectations with painful grunts more eloquent than wordy outbursts of feeling: it is a superb performance offsetting the worldly wisdom of her landlady, the breezy self-assurance of Mayme or the entitled but unhappy bravura of Mrs Van Buren. Alex Waldmann gives Mr Marks a courteous reticence which ultimately hides a deep disappointment while Kadiff Kirwan's George moves from lyrical correspondent to domineering husband with all-too-plausible ease.

Lynn Nottage has re-imagined her forebear's experience and the cast and creative team have done her proud in bringing it to theatrical life.