Sweat by Lynn Nottage
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SWEAT: The Working America in a Greedy America A Play by Lynn Nottage https://www.paperbackparis.com/sweat-lynn-nottage-book-review/ “JASON: It’s nice that you take care of him. OSCAR: That’s how it oughta be,” (Act II, scene vii, page 112) Dramaturgical Packet by A.B. Harrison 2 Table of Contents Playwright Bio 3 Major Production History 6 Critical Analysis The Poem 8 American Dream vs. Corporate Greed 9 Drugs and Poverty 10 Racism and Immigration 11 Prison and Forgiveness 12 Conclusion 13 Symbols 14 Reading, PA. 16 The Labor Union 17 Dedication 19 Glossary 20 Facilitation Prompts 27 Annotated Bibliography 28 3 Playwright Bio Lynnnottage.com Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1964, Lynn Nottage grew up the daughter of a schoolteacher and child psychologist. Influenced by her maternal figures who would sit in the kitchen and tell stories, Nottage began writing plays at a young age in personal journals. She would ride the subway to the High School of Music and Art in Harlem (now part of LaGuardia High School) to begin her creative education before attending Brown University. After receiving her BA (1986), Nottage would earn an MFA from Yale School of Drama (1989) and her DFA from Brown University (2011). Recently, Nottage has received honorary degrees from Juilliard and Albright College. Nottage still lives in Brooklyn and is married to filmmaker Tony Gerber, with whom she has two children. “Nottage's plays, which are noted for their depth of research and their capacity for bringing characters alive in a specific time and place, differ widely from one another as the playwright has consistently explored new settings and techniques” (Encyclepedia). “Her plays […] are vigorously researched and unapologetic about their social concerns, at a time when critics tend to dismiss “issue plays” (Schulman). Lynn Nottage is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright (winning twice for her plays Ruined and Sweat) and a screenwriter. Her plays have been produced throughout the world: Her most recent play, Mlima's Tale, premiered at the Public Theater in May 2018. 4 2017’s Sweat won the Pulitzer Prize, Obie Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize with nominations for the Tony and Drama Desk Awards after a sold out run at The Public Theater and later transfer to Broadway. Other notable plays include • By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2011) o A seventy-year journey through the life of Vera Stark, a headstrong African-American maid and budding actress, and her tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star desperately grasping to hold on to her career. When both women land roles in the same Southern epic, the story behind the camera leaves Vera with a surprising and controversial legacy. • Ruined (2008) o Dramatizes the plight of Congolese women surviving civil war. Set in a small mining town in Democratic Republic of Congo, Ruined follows Mama Nadi, a shrewd businesswoman protecting and profiting from the women she shelters. • Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (2004) o The play deals with a successful African-American woman named Undine who goes into a downward spiral and rediscovers her roots. • Intimate Apparel (2003) o Set in New York in 1905, the play tells the story of a black seamstress named Esther who makes lingerie for a variety of clients ranging from high-society women to prostitutes and becomes involved with their lives even as her own relationships with men develop. • Las Meninas (2002) o The play is a romance, long mostly erased from the historical record, between Marie-Thérèse, wife of King Louis XIV of France, and an African dwarf who had been brought to the French Court. • Mud, River, Stone, (1997) o The play contained both comic and serious elements in its story of a middle-class African-American couple who becomes lost in Africa and is held hostage by a former bellhop at a hotel in the jungle. • Crumbs from the Table of Joy (1995) o Set in the 1950s in New York, the play deals with an African-American family that experiences instant integration when the father marries a German woman who may have survived a Nazi concentration camp. • Por’knockers (1995) o The play deals with the theme of African-American activism. The play, veering between comedy and tragedy, depicts a group of revolutionaries whose plan to set fire to a government office building goes seriously wrong, and it juxtaposes their story with that of a Guyanese gold miner, the original “por'knocker” of the title. 5 • POOF! (1993) o The play addresses the issue of domestic abuse, built around the memorable image of a woman whose husband spontaneously explodes and disappears. She is the co-founder of the production company Market Road Films, writer/producer on the Netflix series She's Gotta Have It directed by Spike Lee, and an Associate Professor in the Theatre Department at Columbia School of the Arts. Nottage is the recipient of • a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship • Steinberg "Mimi" Distinguished Playwright Award • PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award • Merit and Literature Award from The Academy of Arts and Letters • Columbia University Provost Grant • Doris Duke Artist Award • The Joyce Foundation Commission Project & Grant • Madge Evans-Sidney Kingsley Award • Nelson A. Rockefeller Award for Creativity • The Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award • the inaugural Horton Foote Prize • Helen Hayes Award • Lee Reynolds Award • Jewish World Watch iWitness Award • National Black Theatre Fest's August Wilson Playwriting Award • a Guggenheim Grant • Lucille Lortel Fellowship • Visiting Research Fellowship at Princeton University. www.lynnnottage.com/about.html www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/nottage-lynn-1964 6 Major Production History • 2015, Premiered July 29 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, directed by Kate Whoriskey o Cast: Evan- Tyrone Wilson ▪ Jason- Stephen Michael Spencer ▪ Chris- Tramell Tillman ▪ Stan- Jack Willis ▪ Oscar- Carlo Alban ▪ Tracey- Terri McMahon ▪ Cynthia- Kimberly Scott ▪ Jessie- K. T. Vogt ▪ Brucie- Kevin Kenerly • 2015, Played at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. o Director and cast remained the same • After starting previews on October 18, 2016, Sweat opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on November 3, 2016, directed again by Kate Whoriskey. The show closed on December 18 in order to transfer to Broadway. o Cast: Evan- Lance Coadie Williams ▪ Jason- Will Pullen ▪ Chris- Khris Davis ▪ Stan- James Colby ▪ Oscar- Carlo Alban ▪ Tracey- Johanna Day ▪ Cynthia- Michelle Wilson ▪ Jessie- Mariam Shor ▪ Brucie- John Earl Jelks o Nottage “goes where few playwrights have dared to go — into the heart of working-class America. Her insightfully observed characters all went to the same schools, work at the same factory, drink at the same bar, and are going to hell in the same hand basket. Their jobs, their community, and their way of life are doomed, in director Kate Whoriskey’s mercilessly realistic production, although no one seems to have gotten the message yet” (Stasio). • 2017, The production began previews on Broadway at Studio 54 on March 4, 2017 before opening on March 26. The production closed on June 25, 2017, after 105 performances. o Cast: Evan- Lance Coadie Williams ▪ Jason- Will Pullen ▪ Chris- Khris Davis ▪ Stan- James Colby ▪ Oscar- Carlo Alban ▪ Tracey- Johanna Day ▪ Cynthia- Michelle Wilson ▪ Jessie- Alison Wright ▪ Brucie- John Earl Jelks 7 o Sweat explores “Our tendency, when knocked down by our perennial inability to read the future, especially when we don't like what we usually know is coming, to lash out at all the wrong people” (Jones). o “Though it is steeped in social combustibility, “Sweat” often feels too conscientiously assembled, a point-counterpoint presentation in which every disaffected voice is allowed it’s how-I-got-this-way monologue.” Brantley. • 2018, A production was staged at the Mark Taper Forum from August 29 to October 7. The production was directed by Lisa Peterson. o Cast included in alphabetical order: Kevin T. Carroll, Grantham Coleman, Will Hochman, John Earl Jelks, Mary Mara, Peter Mendoza, Michael O’Keefe, Amy Pietz, and Portia. o Sweat “leaves the audience feeling more like they've watched an extended soapbox speech rather than having spent time in the flesh-and-blood lives of its characters” (Schwartz). • 2018, a London production began playing at the Donmar Warehouse on December 7 and run until February 2, 2019. The play was directed by Lynette Linton. o “I can’t think of any recent play that tells us so much, and so vividly, about the state of the union” (Billington). 8 The Effect of Corporate Greed on the Blue-Collar Worker The Poem An excerpt from Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes: O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath— America will be! Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain— All, all the stretch of these great green states— And make America again! Nottage begins Sweat with the ending of Hughes’ poem as a form of foreword. From the first stanza there is an outlining of the writer’s opinion on the American Dream, one that has far seemed unobtainable. Yet, there is a declaration for change, a direct announcement that the Dream will manifest itself at some time. o Jason and Chris (Act I, scene i) just got out of prison; Olstead begins laying off people and look for cheaper workers (first seen in Act I, scene v), the patrons turn on Oscar for crossing the line to better himself (Act II, scene v) The final septet concludes the poem by denouncing through fire the negative issues that have plagued America before.