Intimate Apparel (Ustinov Studio)

After a so-so couple of productions in the Ustinov’s 2014 American Season, the theatre has finally uncovered a gem in Lynn Nottage‘s finely wrought, exquisitely played Intimate Apparel. The writing is as delicate as the sweeping love that affixes Esther (Tanya Moodie), a 35 year old seamstress in 1905, described by herself as no great looker (at least on the outside-inside she is as dazzling as Helen of Troy), she finally may have found her chance of happiness when she starts receiving letters from a man named George in Panama.

Nottage was inspired to write the play having discovered sepia tinged photos of her great- grandparents and creates her own alternative history for them. The feelings she has for each of these characters is clear, each is clearly defined and most important believable, and unusual in most modern work the play is tinged with love, warmth and lightness; we head to the interval feeling fuzzy with delight. Inevitably the second half gets darker, but Lawrence Boswell‘s production keeps everything fluid and the confrontations are restrained rather then histrionic. Just as in real life its life’s miniature that proves most emotionally engaging.

Moodie manages to show us the characters emotional openness; she is at the heart of every scene and conveys the excitement, the joy, the emotional devastation with the merest look, the smallest quiver in the voice. It is acting that will most likely go unnoticed in award season, it’s too subtle for voters taste, but deserves to be on the short list. She is backed by a range of fine supporting performances from the women in the company. All of them in their way have been let down by love, all find solace in their relationship with Esther. Dawn Hope is the bossy landlady and the mirror image of what Esther could have become if she had married young (whether that would have been for the better is left for us to decide-Nottage is too fine a writer to make such glib judgements). Sara Topham (a regular at the Stratford Festival in Canada- making her first appearance in the UK) is the rich Mrs Van Buren, dressed to the nines in the latest style from Paris but with a husband who won’t notice and Rochelle Neil is the tart with a heart and with an affinity with music which suggests a possible escape route.

There is also a terrific Jewish haberdasher from Ilan Goodman who longs to be touched by love as much as Esther and makes one look forward to revisiting his work when he returns for Bad Jews at this same address later this summer. Chu Omambala is the only one who struggles. As George he is powerful in his readings of the letters in the first act, but reverts to characterture and bellowing in the second, which along with a wandering accent-West Indies byway of the West Country-leads to audibility issues.

Lawrence Boswell continues to discover gems in his reign at the Ustinov. With work this good he continues to make the Ustinov a big hitter on the British Theatre Scene. For those of us who live in the South West we should feel enormously privileged to have this gem on our doorstep.