Theater Review: 'Sweat' Embodies Toxic Response To Change

“It’s one of these plays that has to do with what’s going on right now.
It’s small town but it’s global.” -Tony Aldarondo

'Sweat', the Pulitzer Prize Winning Play by Lynn Nottage, spotlights the human response to job loss in America’s industrial “Rust Belt” and the ensuing economic insecurity that helped enable the divisive political climate of modern America. It's set in the blue collar town of Reading, Pennsylvania.

At curtain rise, parole officer Evan (Dodie Katague) meets separately with two young men recently released from prison. Their crimes are not revealed. Jason (Matthew Goff) is tense and belligerent. A black eye and tattoos mar his face. Chris (Julius Rea) is visibly stressed as he references Jason and an event 8 years before. Chris: “What we did was unforgivable."

Most of the remaining action takes place in a neighborhood bar, 12 scenes that depict events from the year 2000 leading up to the event that sent Jason and Chris to prison.

We meet the regulars: Jason and Chris’s moms, Tracey (Camille Cooney) and Cynthia (Jessica Jones), and their good friend Jessie (Venee Call-Ferrer). We meet Stan (Chuck Schilling) the bartender and Oscar (Tony Aldarondo) his help. We meet Brucie (Hosea Morgan), Cynthia’s one time partner, and slightly younger versions of Jason and Chris.

The pub is like their second home where life events, good and bad, have been shared and experienced through the years. Everything happens here, everything is discussed. Factory news and rumors. Cynthia’s promotion to management. Disruptive organizational changes Cynthia is tasked with announcing that upend everyone’s lives. Here the characters watch and react as job security, high union wages and benefits, and the promise of a comfortable retirement for the predominately white, union workforce disappear almost over night.

“And because this play described what it meant when white working class
people lost their power, I could not not work on a play that discussed that.”
-Julius Rea

In the wake of these changes, existential panic sets in sparking a rise of racial tension, scapegoating, and eventually violence. Inter-racial friendships crack under pressure. Immigrants recruited to work for lower wages become targets. A long established social fabric begins to unravel.

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This play is intense and BOTTG pulls it off well. The cast give big rich emotional performances and all of them have moments where they fully embody their characters. Of mention: Camille Cooney and Jessica Jones’s have particularly memorable scenes, together and apart, as their characters struggle to adapt to changing circumstances. Their confrontations resonate with heightened energy.

Getting the rights to produce Sweat was big win for BOTTG. Co-Directors Clinton Vidal and Dan Clark and the BOTTG production team pooled talents and efforts to ready Nottage’s highly prized drama for Benicia.

On working with C0-Directors

"It was all a collaborative work. Dan was really helpful with the characterization. And Clinton helped us kinda take what Dan was doing, when we were at the table. He’d be like, “I see what you’re doing, let’s try to workshop this a little bit more."
- Jessica Jones

"Clinton would say, "You know, you need to do more movement there,
embody that." He was just like kinda spot on."
- Venee Call-Ferrer

Some thoughts on change

Change is inevitable. But humans have an amazing super power: The freedom to choose our response to change.

Now, I know this might be a stretch, because it would take some mastery over our deeply ingrained fight or flight instinct, but, humor me here….

What if, in the face of devastating loss and change, we could stop for a moment to reflect on how good we had had it? Allow ourselves to really feel deeply grateful for the amazing stretch of good fortune we had enjoyed and turn all our energy and focus into creating the next one. How much sooner might we arrive at that next stretch of good fortune?

What will you do with your super power?

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Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times; but that is not for them to decide.
All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.
From 'The Fellowship Of The Ring' by J.R.R. Tolkien (movie version)

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See ‘Sweat’ through May 11, 2019 at the Historic B.D.E.S. Hall, 140 J. St., Benicia, CA 707.746.1269

General Admission $22

Reservations and Tickets online BeniciaOldTownTheatreGroup.com