[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Los Angeles Pierce College Theatre’s (LAPC Theatre) Clyde’s, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage and directed by Esdras Toussaint.
Staging a play written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright isn’t always the safe bet you might expect. Expectations are high. Previously successful productions complicate with understandable comparisons and this is made more acute by the fact that this particular play is very young. Only three years old in fact and a handful of productions on Broadway and The West End…so no pressure!
Director Esdras Toussaint clearly had a purpose in picking this wonderfully written play so gorgeously sprinkled with mystical moments and powerful themes. He cleverly found truly excellent actors for these vivid, poignant roles and they forged brilliant and disparate people from the playwright’s thoughtfully created characters.
The entire play is set in the kitchen of a truck stop dinner somewhere in America. Clyde’s. A sandwich shop of doubtful reputation frequented by long haul truck drivers and passing travelers looking for something to satiate and quickly. But the head cook has aspirations for something more. The perfect sandwich. And he inspires these downtrodden and sorry group of cooks to want more for themselves too. Despite the terrible treatment from the owner-manger who uses their recent release from incarceration and their desperation for a job to taunt them, manipulate them and keep them in their place.
It’s a riveting journey through meager lives wishing for redemption and rebirth. Each character reveals their reason for imprisonment one by one. Nothing too bad, only society pushing them to protect, to retaliate, to forage. No, nothing as deadly in fact as the dastardly manager and her awful torturous ways.
Clyde’s is a classic tale of defiance and triumph in a world as invisible to us as every other we don’t inhabit. But one that is always close by. In the diners, the thrift stores, the car washes or the offices cleaned in the midnight hours. Don’t we all deserve a second chance? Or even a first? While this play’s comment on our society is not entirely its only theme, it does hold our attention, while the deep human need for aspiration and hope completes the picture.
Lynn Nottage is a phenomenal force in American theatre. The only woman to have won two Pulitzer Prizes and many other awards far too numerous to mention. She is a professor of playwrighting at Columbia University and an artist in residence at the Park Avenue Armory. How perfect then that Pierce College would choose a play from such a guiding light for students of the performing arts. They do this play proud. Each actor connecting to every other, making these relationships real and their characters ache for a life to call their own in equal measures heartbreaking and uplifting.
I can highly recommend Clyde’s, it’s a wonderful production and well worth the trip up the Pierce College mountain! I love LAPC’s theatre department. They always choose interesting and meaningful work to produce and we are so lucky to have them nearby! Bravo!!!
Tickets:
Where:
LAPC’s Dow Theatre, 6201 Winnetka Ave, Woodland Hills, CA
When:
December 6-15
Friday and Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2pm
The Cast
The cast includes Nick Caisse, Tiffany Chevonne, Marcus Nash, Alany Soils-Coleman and Andrew Tafur.
The Team
LAPC Theatre’s production is directed by Esdras Toussaint.
The production features scenic design by Frederica Nascimento, costume design by Maya Zeltzer, lighting design by Michael Gend and sound design by Edward Salas. Valeria Ruvalcaba is the stage manager.