Nottage's play moves easily across the boundaries set by society, from a respectable Harlem boardinghouse to the stylish boudoir in the home of an Upper West Side society lady, from the squalor of a Harlem brothel to an East Side tenement fabric store, all places inhabited by people who are intertwined in Esther's daily life. In the process we can relive an era long removed from our own, and yet it is close enough for us to relate to the events revealed by the play's story.

Esther is a single woman, who has to make her own way at a time when women mostly depended on fathers, husbands or guardians of some kind. She is rightly proud of her achievement as a creator of delicate undergarments for women. But she seeks more for herself. She dreams that one day she will own her own shop, achieved through her solitary work. As portrayed by Raven Dauda, we meet a woman who has grown used to being referred to as having a nice smile, but no other seeming attributes to attract a suitor. Her independence is, therefore, all the more important to her

On first meeting her, she is in her room, busy sewing yet another undergarment for one of the boardinghouse's roomers who is about to be married. Esther is proud of what she creates, not just for her fellow tenants, but also for Mrs. Van Buren (Caryl Street), the unhappy society lady, whose husband appears to have rejected her because she cannot produce a child. Dauda never overplays the pride, nor Esther's inherent shyness. Her interpretation of the seamstress brings out a bright shimmer of love for the delicate materials she encounters in the little store she has frequented for years, which are intended for the exquisite camisoles she creates.

That same love for cloth made of exotic fibers is alive in the shy Mr. Marks, an Orthodox Jewish merchant, who often reserves his best materials for Esther. Alex Poch-Goldin's portrayal of the young merchant is as solidly grounded as Dauda's Esther. Like Esther the merchant is resigned to a fate that marks him out for loneliness. As the years pass, he waits patiently for the woman to whom he was betrothed in an arranged marriage, but who has so far not arrived in the United States. Slowly a friendship develops between the black seamstress and the Jewish cloth seller that hints at something beyond ordinary discourse.

Esther's relationship to Mayme (Lisa Berry) shows us how easily the seamstress can move among the classes. Mayme is a prostitute, and a pianist in a Harlem brothel, where her clients of high and low background come to use her services. Berry brings out the sordidness of a whore's life and also the illusionary hopes that reside in Mayme. At the same time she shocks with her hardness when Mayme callously betrays her friend for personal gain.

Esther's life appears to run its course until an unexpected letter arrives from Panama from a man she has never heard of or met. George, who works on the canal project, apparently heard of her through someone from Esther's church congregation. This West Indian begins to court her in elegant language. The correspondence finally ends with a marriage proposal, an acceptance on the part of Esther and his arrival in New York. It is only then that the audience actually meets George (Kevin Hanchard), who one knew only through his letter-reciting voice, his person hidden behind layers of mosquito netting. Esther had fallen in love with the idea of him long before his arrival, carried away by the poetry and elegance of his words and the letters's fine script.

The marriage takes place, poignantly portrayed by the participants, but to say more goes beyond the allowable revelation of the play's plot. Yet one more character must be mentioned, the widow Dickson (Marium Carvell). She is the dignified proprietor of Esther's boardinghouse. While seemingly prickly on the outside, she appears to bear real affection for her longest and oldest boarder. Carvell carries this off well, letting us view the heart of a woman, whose memories of an opium-addicted husband color her perceptions of life.

All this is well contained in a set that allows seamless movement between the disparate parts of New York, from Fifth Avenue to the Lower East Side and into Harlem's respectable boarding house and then tenderloin district. This is achieved through an original set and costumes by Tamara Marie Kucheran. Director Philip Akin understands the nature of this play and his direction moves the characters easily along, yet allows the performers to blossom in their own right.