Under it all, play over the top

Grade: A On its face, Lynn Nottage's “Intimate Apparel” is a snapshot of her great-grandmother's life. A fictionalized account based on an old photograph and the scant information that she had supported herself by making undergarments for ladies in early 1900s New York. But that spare skeleton is fleshed out into a exceptionally literate and heartfelt play that details, largely through the lead character of Esther, the day-to-day existence of African American life at the turn of the century.