Review: ‘Intimate Apparel’ at the Arden Theatre

How can you love someone you’ve never met?

This isn’t a question posed by the reality show Love is Blind, but by Lynn Nottage’s historical drama Intimate Apparel, where a Black seamstress in New York and a manual laborer in Panama forge a relationship through love letters — only to unravel after they say “I do.”

The play is running at the Arden Theatre through Dec. 8.

Esther (Brandi Porter) is a 35-year-old unmarried woman residing in a boardinghouse who has made a living crafting beautiful corsets for women of all social classes in racially segregated Manhattan in 1905.

Her pedal-operated Singer sewing machine sits at the front of the stage. A special quilt holds her savings, reserved for her dream of opening a beauty parlor. Her clients range from a wealthy white socialite, Mrs. Van Buren (Julianna Zinkel), to Mayme (Jessica Johnson), a Black sex worker in the Tenderloin. Their conversations are deftly written, smart, and funny.

Thanks to a mutual acquaintance, Esther begins receiving letters from George (Akeem Davis), a Caribbean man constructing the Panama Canal. Esther, who’s illiterate, gets her clients to read George’s musings and write letters on her behalf, humoring her fantasy, while her mother figure, Mrs. Dickson (Zuhairah McGill), tells her that the “dalliance” isn’t real.

When George arrives in New York and they wed, dissatisfaction seeps in quickly as he reveals a greedy and selfish personality despite his sweet-talking.

One implied insult cuts especially deep: “That’s funny, you owning a beauty parlor,” he says, before suggesting Esther wear makeup and style her hair differently.

He cheats on her (with her friend Mayme, no less), steals everything from her, and leaves.

While set more than 100 years in the past, the play resonates today, possibly even more than when Intimate Apparel premiered in 2003, before the boom of dating apps and shows about romantic fraudsters like Catfish.

Esther’s heartache when George confirms her worst fears feels more tragic after we see the man who actually wants to make her smile, Mr. Marks (David Pica), an Orthodox Jewish immigrant from Romania who sells her fabric.

Porter and Pica play their characters’ quiet magnetism very sweetly, so much so that I was racking my rom-com-addled brain to imagine a path where they might end up together.

Director Amina Robinson (Fat Ham), impressively enough, did not waste a single inch of the small stage in the Arden’s upstairs theater, aided by set designer Andrew Cohen. The intimate setting allowed the audience to see more of the intricately beautiful clothes from costume designer Leigh Paradise (and appreciate Esther’s job even more).

Ultimately, Esther returns to Mrs. Dickson’s boardinghouse, this time pregnant. She’s welcomed back with unconditional love as we’re left with the lesson that there are no happily ever afters. There’s only hard work, the love of your close ones, and the power to keep moving forward.

Through Dec. 8 at the Arden Theatre, Old City; ardentheatre.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes.

Theater reviews are produced independently by The Inquirer without editorial input by their sponsor, Visit Philadelphia.