"In Lynn Nottage’s ‘Clyde’s, menu calls for laughs and wary optimism."
So writes Sam Hurwitt in his review of Lynn's play Clyde's premiering at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
It's set in "a kitchen full of formerly incarcerated people working in a truck-stop sandwich shop dream of something better, sometimes in ways as simple as dreaming up the perfect sandwich."
Lynn" told Sam, "‘Clyde’s’ ends in an unambiguous place of optimism.”
Nottage interviewed people in #Reading as part of a commission for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s “#American Revolutions” cycle.
“Many of the people who I encountered in that city were formally incarcerated,” Nottage recalls. “I ended up having a lot of conversations about the difficulty of re-entry after being in #prison for so long. And people had very similar stories. They kept hitting up against the box when they were being asked whether they were incarcerated. They couldn’t find housing, couldn’t find jobs. But what moved me was the fact that so many of the people who I spoke to were still able to hold onto their #optimism.”