Four sandwich-making ex-cons strive to forge new lives for themselves in Lynn Nottage’s hilarious, hard-hitting Clyde’s, now playing at the Mark Taper Forum direct from its recent run at Chicago’s Goodman Theater.

Lively Latino sous-chef Rafael (Reza Salazar) nurses a not-so-secret crush on co-worker Letitia (Nedra Snipes), a single mother with a disabled daughter and a good-for-nothing baby-daddy ex, while “sandwich sensei” Montrellous (Kevin Kenerly) dreams of adding gourmet delights to the mundane fare served at a Reading, Pennsylvania roadside joint called Clyde’s.

New to the group is the just-released Jason (Garrett Young), whose face-and-body tats, acquired in prison as a means of self-preservation, now seem likely to impede whatever efforts he might make to improve his lot in life beyond Clyde’s.

As Jason’s more experienced co-workers imagine confectioning sandwiches with the perfect mix of ingredients, the newbie gets schooled on such sandwich-making basics as “Don’t wipe your nose with you hand and then not wash it” and “When you drop an ingredient on the floor, try not to put it back in the sandwich.”

Completing Clyde’s cast of characters is bodalicious, hard-edged boss-from-hell Clyde (Tamberla Perry), as proud of the fact that she doesn’t “do sympathy” as she is of the series of body-hugging outfits she sports, each new one flashier and more curve enhancing than the one before.

Though not much “happens” over the course of Clyde’s hour-and-a-half running time, the play’s briskly moving ninety minutes allow us to get to know five first-impression-defying characters and grow to care about them as we root for them to make their hopes and dreams come true despite significant odds.

Mark Taper Forum regulars may remember Jason from Nottage’s considerably darker Pulitzer Prize-winner Sweat, though with characters as sassy as Letitia and as salsarrific as Rafael, it’s no wonder that this time round the laughs come fast and furious under Kate Whoriskey’s razor-sharp direction.

That’s not to say that Clyde’s doesn’t have its dramatic moments too as past transgressions and present troubles get revealed, but it’s still a major tonal departure for Nottage, one that she aces every step of the way.

Performances could not be more spectacular, from the absolutely delightful Salazar (who originated Rafael on Broadway and reprised him in Chicago opposite Kennerly’s wise and eloquent Montrellous, Snipes’s voluptuous-waters-run-deep Tish, and Young’s engaging, stereotype-defying Jason) to cast newbie Perry, whose take-no-prisoners Clyde is so gorgeously godawful as a boss, she might actually be the devil in six-inch heels.

Christopher Akerlind’s stunning lighting design shifts from starkly white to hellishly red as a series of special effects by J & M Special Effects and pyrotechnician Eric Elias suggest that Clyde’s might well be something more surreal than real.

Completing the production’s Broadway-to-Chicago-to-L.A. production design are the stylishly rendered grime and grunge of Takeshi Kata’s kitchen set, Justin Ellington’s pulsating sound design (integrating Justin Hicks’ electrifying original music), Jennifer Moeller’s just-right costumes (with special snaps to Clyde’s array of sexy stunners), and Cookie Jordan’s equally fabulous hair and wigs.

Casting is by Lauren Port, CSA, and Rachael Jimenez, CSA. Preston Butler III, Bukola Ogunmola, Roland Ruiz, Connor Sullivan, and Debra Walton are Sweat’s L.A.-based understudies.

Michelle Blair is production stage manager and Edward Khris Fernandez is stage manager.

As she did in Sweat, Lynn Nottage once again provides theatergoers with an eye-opening, heart-opening glimpse at lives they might otherwise never encounter in their daily lives, let alone get to know.

As entertaining as it is illuminating and engrossing, Lynn Nottage’s latest winner makes Clyde’s sandwich shop well worth a roadside stop.

Mark Taper Forum, 35 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles.
www.centertheatregroup.org

–Steven Stanley
November 19, 2022
Photos: Craig Schwartz Photography

Tags: Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles Theater Review, Lynn Nottage, Mark Taper Forum