Out of the Margins

Lynn Nottage’s sandwich shop comedy, Clyde’s, was the most produced play in the US last year, with at least 11 productions of the play alone; an American Theater magazine survey found that there were 24 productions of Nottage’s plays planned for the whole season. Clyde’s is a comedy about incarceration and racial tension. For the New York Times, Lynn Nottage said, “Clyde’s is a play about people trapped in a liminal space. It is also about community, healing, creativity, mindfulness and forgiveness.” In the front of her annotated rehearsal script, Nottage adds: “I wanted to convey the weight of their dilemmas that sustained their complexity while also giving them humor, humanity and a path toward healing.” 

This is a liberally annotated script, and the US’s most produced playwright seems to enjoy reflecting on the writing process: “Had fun making Clyde deliciously wicked - the embodiment of all of their fears, self doubt”. She asks big questions of her characters: “Can someone who has committed a heinous hate crime find a path toward healing? Be redeemed?” And at one moment highlights a single paragraph of speech and uses it to sum up the entire play with two words ("the dilemma"). It’s almost like she’s in the sandwich truck herself, at the end, piling on the perfect amount of each topping, when she continues the culinary metaphor to its logical conclusion: “Can’t achieve wholeness without the integration of all the ingredients, carefully balanced. The ingredients on their own may not seem so special, but when combined w/ intention, love and craft…” Well, as any great sandwich maker knows, you just have to experience it to find out.