Broadway Play Review—“Clyde’s” by Lynn Nottage

Clyde’s

Written by Lynn Nottage

Directed by Kate Whoriskey

Performances through January 16, 2022

Hayes Theatre, 240 West 44th Street, NYC

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Uzo Aduba and Ron Cephas Jones in Lynn Nottage's Clyde's

Lynn Nottage’s plays demonstrate not only sympathy for her characters but also an ability to write about those usually not given a stage, so to speak, to address their hopes, dreams, aspirations and grievances. Her last play, the 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner Sweat, was an unflinching look at residents of Reading, Pennsylvania, where poverty was off the charts—unsurprisingly, Nottage never patronized nor condescended to these people.

The same obtains in her new play, Clyde’s, as Nottage again paints complicated portraits of characters usually ignored by most of us in our everyday lives. The setting is a run-down greasy spoon again in rural Pennsylvania, where Clyde, the imposing owner who never suffers fools, hires ex-convicts to work in her kitchen to make sandwiches for her trucker clientele wanting quick, cheap, tasty food.

Clyde (a fierce, funny Uzo Aduba) is relentless in keeping her employees on their toes and making what her revolving door of customers wants, even if they think it’ll ruin their carefully crafted creations. There’s energetic Letitia, who has a youngster at home and an untrustworthy ex; boisterous Rafael, who’s trying to stay off drugs and who has an (mostly) unrequited crush on Letitia; the new guy with the racist face tattoos, Jason, recently out of prison; and Montrellous, the veteran the others look up to, who keeps their spirits up by describing the perfect sandwiches he would make if he could.

Clyde’s often moves like a superior sitcom, with fast-talking, ever-quipping diner employees (the perfectly greasy set by Takeshi Kata gets an illuminating assist from Chirstopher Akerlund’s lighting). But in this seemingly thin setup, Nottage and ace director Kate Whoriskey provide a wealth of, observation, insight and drama that’s leavened by dollops of humor. 

Everyone is individualized sufficiently, and the rest of the cast comes to the fore, led by Ron Cephas Jones as a marvelous Montrellous, a beguiling mixture of zen-master and elder statesman. Scarcely behind him are the robust performances by Kara Young (Letitia), Reza Salazar (Rafael) and Edmund Donovan (Jason), making Clyde’s a place—and a play—worth visiting.