You won’t find a more detailed sandwich shop kitchen with refrigerator and food prep areas than at :”Clyde’s” presented by FSU/Asolo Conservatory at the very relevant-named Cook Theater for this play. The scene typifies work by award-winning Asolo Rep Scenic Studios under Vic Meyrich, perfect for Jeff Weber’s realistic, very detailed design.
Owner Clyde (Jasmyn Ackah’s perfectly despicable shop owner) has assembled a group of workers from ex-cons, mainly to make sandwiches. Clyde enjoys being able to command obsequiousness from employees who need jobs. Clyde, actually an “ex” herself, is sardonic toward them but works mostly at being seductive to everyone of the many with whom she’s in contact in the restaurant and outside.
A congenial worker, especially to Letitia, the Hispanic Rafael (a warm Jonathan Acosta, easy to sympathize with) hopes to become a sous-chef. He takes his work seriously and eagerly joins in the workers’ attempt (central action of this play) to create a perfect sandwich.
Letitia (petite Ashley McCauley Moore’s always-busy “Tish”), who’d been arrested as a pill pusher, is less concerned with her work than how her young child is faring at “home.” Tish tries not to show it. Still, she’s an easy target for anything adverse that Clyde fancies to throw at her.
Jason, the only white person in the shop, feels discriminated against and finds it hard to communicate. He’s full of tattoos, thus constantly not just a figuratively marked man. (Brian Zane shows fear powerfully yet makes sense of why he comes to his final choices.) Jason’s problem has been heightened by Clyde promising she’ll tell police he tried to “make her” if he won’t conform to her commands.
The most enigmatic worker, since he is always positive in his attitudes and also reactions to Clyde, is Ibukun Omotowa’s Montrellous. It’s a mystery as potent as the reason why he’s been in prison. (That’s revealed only at the end of the play.) Omotowa makes him gentle and unique, not just among those at the restaurant.
You won’t see the hand of director DeAnna S. Wright in the movement of the actors or the plot activity, since all seems quite natural, so un-staged. The same is true of set and scenic elements. An exception is Tish’s hair-do. You might also wish that less food would go into a garbage bin during a performance.
I miss Lynn Nottage specifying a particular place or region for the location of “Clyde’s.” I think it comes off as near a big city, even like New York, that has a prison nearby. The fine costumes in the Conservatory version seem to indicate a dress code followed outside the restaurant and the weather seems to be moderate as in fall or early spring. Date is also important since the language and morals presented are not pre-modern.
I, for one, dislike seeing them as contemporary and even normal, but if so—as said in a modern classic play—“attention should be paid.”
