Get Inspired at the Long Beach Playhouse
by Maureen Habel
Perhaps your faith in human nature is a little shaky because you haven’t met Ms. Esther Mills, the protagonist of “Intimate Apparel,” now playing at the Long Beach Playhouse. Esther is a skilled seamstress hoping for a better life in 1905 in Lower Manhattan.
Playwright Lynn Nottage, the only woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice, often focuses on the experience of working class African-Americans. Although set over a century ago, the themes will resound with seniors: preserving integrity; honoring values; overcoming adversity; rising above disappointments; and remaining optimistic in the face of uncertainty.
Esther rents a room where she earns her living sewing fine intimate apparel for women. Her small social circle includes her motherly and pragmatic landlady Mrs. Dixon, party girl, saloon singer and friend Mayme, and Mrs. Van Buren, a wealthy and lonely client. Esther becomes involved in a long distance courtship and eventual marriage with the charming Bahamian George Armstrong. The one relationship that offers intimacy on a soul level but is forbidden by religious, cultural and racial barriers is between Esther and Jewish fabric vendor Mr. Marks.
Director Brooke Aston Harper has created an engaging and
