Clyde’s, starring Sophia Walker, is now playing in a punchy production by Canadian Stage.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
- Title: Clyde’s
- Written by: Lynn Nottage
- Performed by: Sophia Walker, Augusto Bitter, Jasmine Case, Sterling Jarvis, Jonathan Sousa
- Director: Philip Akin
- Company: Canadian Stage
- Venue: Bluma Appel Theatre
- City: Toronto
- Year: Runs until April 26
This week, The Atlantic ran a 10,000-word essay about finding the best free restaurant bread in America. Humour writer Caity Weaver travelled the country in search of the perfect zero-dollar carb, and while Red Lobster’s cheddar biscuits and The Cheesecake Factory’s brown baguette were contenders for the title, the winner – a cranberry walnut loaf with a crispy, mottled crust – didn’t come from a chain restaurant. It came from Parc, a French bistro in Philadelphia (or, further south, from Le Diplomate in Washington, D.C., where the title-winning manna is also served).
But Weaver’s yeasty treatise is only sort of about bread. It’s also about grief, and the schisms between tax brackets, and the socio-political circumstances that led a year’s worth of baked goods to Weaver’s various tables.
In the same vein, Clyde’s, Lynn Nottage’s sandwich tragicomedy, is only partly about sandwiches. (And, delight of delights, the play – set in a neighbouring county to Philly – references a cranberry nut loaf that sounds an awful lot like Parc’s.)
Sophia Walker’s had a big year. But sandwich dramedy Clyde’s marks a new chapter for the actor
That said, it seems a stretch that the characters in Clyde’s, now playing in a punchy production by Canadian Stage, will dine at Parc any time soon. All of them, owner included, are felons with limited cash or access to better jobs. On their shifts at the titular sandwich shop – a popular spot for truck drivers long-hauling through Pennsylvania, we’re told – they share the stories of what led them to prison and trade ideas for the perfect specimen. Melted cheddar and garlic butter on sourdough. A Cubano with spicy aioli and sweet onions. Eggplant parm with puttanesca sauce.
In each case, the suggested grub sounds so good that there’s almost no point in making it: The end concoction couldn’t possibly live up to the employees’ dreams of it.
What quickly becomes clear is that Clyde’s is surprisingly low on plot. It’s almost Chekhovian in its exploration of the human condition – nothing happens, everything happens. Sandwiches get made, sandwiches get eaten.
All of the characters in Clyde's are felons with limited cash or access to better jobs.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
Indeed, it’s a rubbery piece of writing with a number of irritating passages, some of which are plain bizarre coming from Nottage, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. (Or maybe not so bizarre: Her bio musical about Michael Jackson is also a head-scratcher, albeit a profitable one.)
Halfway through Clyde’s, the employees recite the hardships that accompany incarceration almost as if reading a PSA, grinding the play’s limited action to a halt as they share struggles the audience likely understands already. Recidivism rates are high. Life is harder in the U.S. for Black felons than it is for their white counterparts. Job prospects are limited.
The play’s premise – a dramedy about four down-on-their-luck line cooks and a devil of a boss – already broadcasts those ideas, and loudly: Did we really need them spelled out in such stilted prose?
But director Philip Akin’s stylish production, complete with pyrotechnics and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them stage illusions by Michael Kras, elevates the material from a greasy Big Mac to a Michelin-worthy smashburger. As Clyde, Sophia Walker massages the underwritten entrepreneur into a three-dimensional figurehead. Sometimes, it seems she might be capable of softness – at a certain point I found myself actively looking for reasons to root for her before coming up empty – and Walker taps into that vulnerability when the text allows.
While it's not a perfect play, but the odyssey of watching director Philip Akin’s treatment of Clyde’s is fulfilling; satiating; tasty.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
More often, though, Clyde is evil, a word I raised an eyebrow at when reading reviews of the play’s New York and London productions, but which is ultimately correct. She threatens trumped-up sexual assault accusations against her male employees; she beats her cooks when they don’t fall in line; she screams and gloats and tortures at every turn. The role is challenging and one-note – I’m unconvinced anyone but Walker could play it so well.
The rest of the ensemble is also quite strong, though with the luxury of better-written parts. As recovering addict Rafael, Augusto Bitter is a standout, sympathetic and funny in the character’s crusade for his co-worker’s heart. Jasmine Case plays Letitia, the object of Rafael’s desires, with a grounded blend of hope and hurt, though her dialect occasionally fizzles into the actor’s natural speech patterns.
Meanwhile, Sterling Jarvis might be the play’s beating heart as Montrellous, the arm’s-length sandwich artist whose closing monologue further underscores Nottage’s points about justice and duty.
That leaves Jonathan Sousa as Jason, the employee with conspicuous white supremacist tattoos. Those markings were a means of survival in prison, says Jason – of course, they’ll be his downfall on the outside. Sousa is terrific in the role.
Clyde’s is not a perfect play. I’m sure that, in some way, Parc’s cranberry walnut loaf is not a perfect bread. But much like Weaver’s journey to answer her research question for The Atlantic, the odyssey of watching Akin’s treatment of Clyde’s is fulfilling; satiating; tasty. And while I have my quibbles about the meal, I’m glad to have taken the bite.