Well the Missus and I trundled down to the Lyric Stage yesterday to catch its production of Intimate Apparel and say, it was more than swell.

From [Lynn Nottage] the author of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Intimate Apparel is a loving and evocative portrait of Esther, an independent but lonely African American seamstress in early 20th-century Manhattan who earns a living sewing exquisite lingerie for wealthy socialites uptown, and women of ill repute downtown. When Esther receives a letter from a stranger who is laboring on the Panama Canal, she begins a long-distance courtship with him, only to discover that he is not all that he seems.

The direction by Summer L. Williams is wonderfully adroit, Amanda Mujica’s costumes are just lovely, and the cast is uniformly superb, especially Lindsey McWhorter’s heartbreaking Esther and Nael Nacer’s equally heartwrenching Mr. Marks.

Amanda Mujica on the play’s costumes:

Over all, a riveting production. You have until March 14 to see it.