{"id":1687,"date":"2019-01-06T15:59:40","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T15:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1687"},"modified":"2019-03-10T19:28:52","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T19:28:52","slug":"propwatch-the-beer-in-sweat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2019\/01\/propwatch-the-beer-in-sweat.html","title":{"rendered":"Propwatch: the beer in Sweat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t see the sweat in Sweat<\/a><\/em>. It dries grimily on the skin, sinks into workclothes, or is sluiced off at home. In Lynn Nottage\u2019s Pulitzer-winning drama, set in America\u2019s rusting rust belt, sweat is the index of manual labour at the steelworks, effort and vigilance distilled to salty droplets. On your feet all day, straining back and bunions \u2013 yet aircon is reserved for management, who can sit at desks and do nothing more physically strenuous than yabber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one is management in Sweat<\/em>, at least not at first. The blue-collar characters all have a longstanding, intimate connection to the assembly line, making metal tubing. Most of the action unfolds in a local bar, where the women come for birthdays and to blow off steam, where their sons have grown to join them, where even the bartender is a former factory guy, injured in a preventable accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People drink different stuff \u2013 one character\u2019s gimlet seems a lime-scented trace of her long-abandoned dreams of travel \u2013 but beer is the staple. Propwatch always keeps an eye on the drinks cabinet, because liquor is character. We\u2019ve watched the whisky<\/a> in Pinter, the Jack Daniels that Rosalie Craig nurses in Company<\/a><\/em>. In Lynette Linton\u2019s production at London’s Donmar, dense with thought-out detail, you see who chooses a bottle, who chugs from draught. Who gulps fast and furious, who sips slow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nottage\u2019s<\/a> early scenes \u2013 set in the long aftermath of the main action \u2013 signal that bad stuff has happened. We could guess that this industrial town has taken a pummelling. It\u2019s mostly set around 2000 \u2013 Bush\u2019s election is on the cards \u2013 but she researched it in 2011, through repeated visits to Reading in Pennsylvania, which had lost its manufacturing base and become one of America\u2019s poorest cities. That\u2019s the encompassing arc in Sweat<\/em> \u2013 but the enveloping emotional force of the play is its individual stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


Here everybody knows your name – and what you\u2019re drinking <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Suspended above the stage, girders and tackle are stupefied\nin rust. Nothing has worked for a while. In Frankie Bradshaw\u2019s considered design,\nwe see the bar assemble before our eyes \u2013 stools and screens and neon signs, optics\nand bowls of nuts \u2013 so it shouldn\u2019t surprise us that this solid world can fragment\nin a blink. Yet, in the easeful early scenes of banter and delighted story-telling,\nyou can almost believe that it would last forever. Here, everybody knows your\nname and what you\u2019re drinking. Friendships seem strong as iron, community as sturdy\nas assembly line overalls. But guess what? Overalls can fray. Iron can rust.\nThe world you know can fall apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Cynthia (Clare Perkins, superbly warm and worn) is promoted from the floor above her pal Tracey (a hard-bitten Martha Plimpton), their longtime friendship founders: Tracey, who is white, bitches that Cynth was only promoted because she\u2019s African-American. At the same time, their employer embraces late-capitalist pragmatism: renegotiating contracts, busting unions, shipping in cheaper (often Latino) labour and shipping out operations. There\u2019s a lockout, a shockingly-staged act of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the drinks change too: Cynthia\u2019s double whisky is\nas much a sign of managerial stress and paycheck as the computer on her desk;\nTracey\u2019s double vodka is an extravagant shot of despair. The bar regulars and\nstaff turn on each other \u2013 a companionable chug of beer after hours doesn\u2019t cut\nit any more. Divisions appear along faultlines of race and class (interestingly,\nnot so much around gender). And you realise how harmony was an illusion: economic\nsuccess allowed the company to appear paternalistic, the community\u2019s\ndifferences to blend. As the plot tightens and community unravels, things fall\napart. As each day\u2019s headlines tell us, they\u2019re still falling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each time Cynthia\u2019s son Chris (Osy Ikhile) comes into the\nbar, he asks what beers are on tap. Each time, in friendly exasperation, he\u2019s\ntold they\u2019re the same as always. It\u2019s a tiny moment snagging on stability and the\nfaintest hope for change. When he returns, in 2008, the town has changed irrevocably,\nthe bar has upscaled and for once, there\u2019s a different answer to his question.\nArtisanal beer, who knew? But it\u2019s for a new student population who have left\nChris, his scattered and damaged community behind. The America we see in Sweat <\/em>can\u2019t share a beer any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo above (Leanne<\/em> Best, Martha Plimpton and Clare Perkins) by Johann Persson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We don\u2019t see the sweat in Sweat. It dries grimily on the skin, sinks into workclothes, or is sluiced off at home. In Lynn Nottage\u2019s Pulitzer-winning drama, set in America\u2019s rusting rust belt, sweat is the index of manual labour at the steelworks, effort and vigilance distilled to salty droplets. On your feet all day, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,322,321,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-donmar","8":"tag-props","9":"tag-propwatch","10":"tag-theatre","11":"entry","12":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1751,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions\/1751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}