Clyde’s

Play (2021)
by Lynn Nottage
Directed by Taylor Reynolds
Huntington Theatre Company
In a Co-Production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre
The Huntington Theater
Symphony Hall area, Boston
March 24 – April 23, 2023

Scenic Design: Wilson Chin; Costume Design: Karen Perry; Hair, Wig, and Makeup Design: Megan Ellis; Lighting Design: Amith Chandrashaker; Sound Design: Aubrey Dube

With Wesley Guimaraes (Rafael), Cyndii Johnson (Letitia), Louis Reyes McWilliams (Jason), April Nixon (Clyde), Harold Surratt (Montrellous)

A sandwich making guru, Montrellous (Harold Surratt), dominates the scene at Clyde’s, an ordinary sandwich shop with an extraordinary group of people working in its kitchen. They are bossed by Clyde (April Nixon), who owns the shop and wants to keep her customers fed and happy. But she does not have the sense of culinary aesthetic that Montrellous cultivates and exhibits. While he encourages his fellow workers to invent new and interesting recipes, Clyde is just interested in getting the basic and barely adequate sandwiches out the door. Nonetheless, it is Montrellous who carries the spiritual day, as he helps inspire his fellow workers, all challenged in one way or another, to rise to the occasion.

The direction and acting in this play are superb and make the script, which is entertaining and witty but narratively a bit thin come truly alive. The characters do come through, and one comes to be inspired by Montrellous, raised to hilarity by Jason (Louis Reyes McWilliams), and held in the poignantly challenged encounters of Rafael (Wesley Guimaraes) and Letitia (Cyndii Johnson). Though the scene is a sandwich shop, we know it is a lot more, and that comes through in the subtext though one wishes that there were more text about the characters, their challenges, and the nuances of their relationships. Instead, there is a lot of talk about sandwich recipes. Those recipes are enlightening and interesting, but they take up a bit too much room in the expanse of this short play.

That said, the production is so well done overall that the slimness of the narrative strikes one as a relatively minor detraction from the overall effect. Sets, lighting, sound, and costumes are all done expertly. Just watching the changing of clothes and wigs on Clyde is a full-time endeavor.

Indeed, there are many funny lines, and well delivered throughout. The master of these is Louis Reyes McWilliams as Jason, who offers deadpan one-liners in a hilarious way. Harold Surratt’s Montrellous is indeed a very compelling character and offers wonderful slices of wisdom along with his supervision of the endlessly inspired sandwich recipes.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)