Playwright Lynn Nottage pores over loss of jobs, identity in ‘Sweat’

ShawnJ West does not shy away from explosive conversations As director of the latest Palo Alto Players production Lynn Nottage s Pulitzer-winning play Sweat those conversations not only manifest inside the storyline but first build momentum in the rehearsal room What I ve invariably loved about conflicts is they re inevitably about the relationships that people choose or are born into and with that you never know what someone s going to say says West a longtime Bay Area actor director and podcaster In Sweat which had its premiere in at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival characters say an awful lot The play is set in the early and later s focusing on a diverse crop of blue collar workers who have seen their jobs dwindle as the North American Free Arrangement Agreement decimates U S employment The deindustrialization that took place ensured countries such as Mexico would serve as a global leader for industry at a fraction of the cost The play examines this fallout and the tensions that follow through a group of steel tubing workers gathering in a local watering hole where conflicts abound amid the rampant loss of identity and career much of the conflicts falling along racial lines Nottage a native of Brooklyn N Y spent countless hours in the city of Reading Penn interviewing workers of all ages in to understand how their lives were crippled as their jobs went elsewhere leaving multiple with no future prospects One of the powers of Sweat is its prescience Rampant poverty in the Rust Belt states and a commitment to the current president who promised to bring back manufacturing jobs is consistently part of the news cycle Yet Kimberly Ridgeway who plays the conflicted lightning rod Cynthia does what she can to leave the present context out of her process For me I find it s easier not to put the parallels there as to not play the character forward Ridgeway says As an adult in and it was very easy for me to put myself back in that time hearing about NAFTA for the first time and voting in those elections I try to not think so much about what the future holds and stay in the moment of the story That story offers glimpses of universality that working people struggle with especially when it comes to remembering the roots of a job among one s peers A working stiff in the factory is viewed differently after moving into upper management For Cynthia now showing up to work as a manager means being on the other side when a factory locks out its employees who are also friends But getting ahead in a company means taking advantage of development opportunities no matter what The conflicts Cynthia wrestles with leads to various brutal self-interrogation Ridgeway is more than happy to grasp those conflicts and interpret as an actor She has this tug-of-war between loyalty to the brand but she s also become kind of corporate whether she means to or not RIdgeway declared So based on that how does one show empathy while also getting the work done because that s the job you sought There are also struggles like mortgages or car payments a son that s going to college that kind of stuff While West sees parallels between the play and nowadays s political zeitgeist the critical thing for the director is allowing the story to reveal truth I think the biggest thing is just having actors understand they are creating human beings on stage and nothing is ever going to be perfect but it has to be truthful West disclosed If you tell the story and trust the words the playwright has written you don t have to do much work except allow yourself to let that character tell their story through your body For an actor to let their character live inside them means understanding that discomfort is part of an effective performance West also wants those who come see Sweat to lean into that discomfort Open yourself up and be willing to learn and to possibly walk away with something you thought you knew and it s been shifted It could be a narrative or perspective shift or an experience as to how we treat and see each other and move about the world Sweat runs June - opening night June at the Lucie Stern Theater Middlefield Road Palo Alto Tickets are - at paplayers org David John Ch vez is chair of the American Theatre Critics Journalists Association and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama - davidjchavez bsky social