Event

Intimate Apparel

Esther lives in a boarding house run by the matronly Mrs. Dickson. Esther works tirelessly creating custom made lingerie for New York's uptown ladies and its downtown ladies of the night. Straddling these two worlds, Esther, who is plain and sensible, yearns for love. But the most romance her lonely life offers is her encounters with Mr. Marks, the Orthodox Jewish supplier of exotic fabric. The wonderful fabrics provided by Mr. Marks and her secret dream of opening a beauty parlor sustain her until she receives a letter from George Armstrong, a Barbadian laborer working on the Panama Canal, asking her to correspond with him. Esther welcomes this possibility, but is compromised by her inability to read and write. She relies on others to write to George for her. As the relationship flourishes through the exchange of letters, Mrs. Dickson counsels Esther to be cautious. Against Mrs. Dickson's advice, Esther marries George upon his arrival in New York. Marriage to George is not what Esther imagined. As Esther navigates her relationship with George, Lynn Nottage, the playwright, comments on issues of race, the position of women at the time, love and self-worth.