New York theater critics have given universally positive reviews to the new chamber opera Intimate Apparel, adapted by Lynn Nottage from her 2003 play that centers around Esther, an African-American seamtress in turn-of-the-century New York City. The creative team includes Ricky Ian Gordon (music), Lynn Nottage (libretto), Bartlett Sher (direction), Dianne McIntyre (choreography), Steven Osgood (music direction), Michael Yeargan (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes), Jennifer Tipton (lights), Marc Salzberg (sound), and 59 Productions (projections). The cast includes Justin Austin (George Armstrong), Errin Duane Brooks (Mr. Charles), Kearstin Piper Brown (Esther), Adrienne Danrich (Mrs. Dickson), Arnold Livingston Geis (Mr. Marks), Anna Laurenzo (Young Woman), Jasmine Muhammad (Corinna Mae), Naomi Louisa O’Connell (Mrs. Van Burne), Krysty Swann (Mayme), and Jorell Williams (Young Man). The production is booking through March 6 at Lincoln Center’s Off-Broadway Newhouse Theater.
New York Theatre Guide (Juan Michael Porter II): What is most remarkable about the new production … is that it continues to function as a play. There is no flattening of nuance or emotion. … Brown’s performance is much like Zuber’s magnificent costumes: contained and lovely, but even more magnificent once the top layers are removed to reveal the intricate undergirding below. … Gordon’s passages accentuate the storytelling, much like Esther’s designs flatter the forms of her customers. … Opera demands true storytelling, and when wedded with wonderful acting and directorial vision as it is here, the results are equal to and possibly greater than any play.
New York Times (Jesse Green): A woman so bent on betterment in an age that makes it almost impossible deserves the most serious and ambitious musical treatment available — and gets it. … Many plays sewn so tightly unravel completely as they stretch toward their crisis. Not Intimate Apparel; with its eye on the big picture, it maintains both its integrity and its tension to the end. … When Esther [says] “My life ain’t really worthy of words,” she means that she isn’t special enough to be made permanent on paper. That isn’t true; as Nottage and now Gordon have shown, she is worthy of even more. She is worthy of music that is finally worthy of her.
Theater Mania (Hayley Levitt): Intimate Apparel in its new musical form is allowed to keep its delicacy while also cutting enough seams to let its content soar to the rafters. … The text is pared down to its bare essentials to allow both literal and metaphorical space for composer Ricky Ian Gordon’s score to do its work. And while some of Nottage’s luscious verbiage is lost, Gordon’s music successfully plumbs the depths of the original piece. … As you march through Esther’s story of ambition, fortitude, and longing for love, only to see her etched in history as “unidentified Negro seamstress,” you’ll agree it’s an ending worthy of operatic tragedy.
Variety (Frank Rizzo): Rich vocal talents fill Ricky Ian Gordon’s sung-through music not just with soaring notes but with heartfelt expression. Leading them is the sensitive soul at the center of it all, a mesmerizing Kearstin Piper Brown. … Nottage has stripped down her play to a tight libretto. There’s an elegant, poetic simplicity in its essential journey of the human heart as it navigates matters of race, gender, religion and class. Overlaying it all is Gordon’s lush score. … Each act ends with large sepia-toned photographs of “unidentified Negros.” … This new and glorious opera reclaims their stories, passions and humanity as well as their rightful place woven into the American tapestry.