Critic’s Choice
Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, currently onstage at Pioneer Theatre, takes a hard look at recent American history.
The play, a 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner, chronicles the lives of a group of friends who also happen to work at the same plant. The story opens in 2000 when life is good for everybody. They congregate regularly at a bar run by Stan, a former employee at the same plant who was injured on the job. The group, led by Tracey, hangs out after work to drink, joke around, unwind and talk about their day before heading home. However when the story moves ahead to 2008, at the start of the Great Recession, the tale turns dark, violent and tragic.
This isn’t an easy story to take in, and Pioneer Theatre must be commended for going out on a limb and bringing Sweat to Utah. With the political and economic problems facing the country today, Nottage’s unsettling tale seems timeless.
Sweat runs through April 13 at Pioneer Theatre. pioneertheatre.org. 801-581-6961.
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