Burbage Theatre Co premieres Lynn Nottage’s two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Clyde’s, directed by Burbage’s founding artistic director, Jeff Church. A truck stop sandwich shop offers its formerly incarcerated kitchen staff a shot at redemption. Even as the shop’s callous owner tries to keep them down, the staff members learn to reclaim their lives, find purpose, and become inspired to dream by their shared quest to create the ultimate sandwich — their ticket out of this hell and into success.
“Clyde’s is one of my favorite plays of the last 10 years — a profoundly joyous, irreverent comedy on serious matters,” says Church. “I cannot express how lucky we are to be able to produce it on our stage. It does what the best theatre does: It reveals new perspectives and sharpens them, elicits empathy and hope, and speaks directly to the world we are living in now. It is about tiptoeing through American systems of oppression, and those missteps that carry the direst consequences. It is, unmistakably, a play about both the passionate pursuit of redemption and of the perfect sandwich. Lynn Nottage has long been a clear-eyed champion of the working class, and Clyde’s continues that theme with humor, urgency, and compassion.”
This production is as poignant as it is comical, and you can always count on Burbage for stellar acting to imaginatively manage the highs and lows. MJ Daly portrays Clyde, one badass businesswoman. She’s been to Hell and back, and can shred you with a look. Herself a felon, she hires other rogues to make the sandwiches, ruthlessly reminding them at every turn that their fate is in her hands. Jason Quinn as Montrellous has a gift for creating mouth-watering masterpieces, misplaced in the red diner baskets like diamonds in the rough. His vision could take the shop to new heights, if only Clyde would allow it…