On Friday, Paducah’s Market House Theatre will be presenting a one-night-only staged reading of “Clyde’s” a play written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage, known for her award-winning plays “Ruined” and “Sweat.”
“Clyde’s” is a play set at a truck stop diner where the kitchen staff consists of formerly incarcerated people who work under the cold-hearted owner Clyde who tries to keep them down. The staff try to reclaim their lives and are inspired to perform their jobs as best they can, which includes the quest to create the perfect sandwich.
MHT Executive Director Michael Cochran is the director of “Clyde’s.”
“Montrellous is the master sandwich maker, and he inspires the other kitchen staff to move beyond their present circumstances and create the perfect sandwich. And really, that's a metaphor for how to find yourself and bring out the best in what you do each day.” Cochran said.
But as the kitchen staff tries to excel in their work and the shop becomes more popular among truckers, Cochran said Clyde is keeping them under her thumb and holding them back from advancing further.
“Clyde’s” also explores themes like incarceration and rehabilitation, as well as the idea of how someone might reinvent themselves after being released from prison.
“You have the people who just got out of prison, and nobody will hire them, so this is kind of like the only place that will take them. And Clyde is not an easy person to work for. So she is always putting them down and telling them that they're going back to prison if they don't do what she wants them to do,”Cochran said. “It is a show that has a lot of language in it, as you would expect from characters like this, but really it has a lot of moments of humor in it, too, about their struggles and about that effort to create the perfect sandwich.”
Cochran said that there will be over a dozen sandwiches made during the play and that some will be available to the audience to sample after the show.
“Part of the reason we ended up not doing the full production but instead the stage reading was we had to put a full kitchen on stage to make all this food. And what we wanted to do was because when you hear this script, you're like, ‘I want to try that sandwich. I want to try that,’” said Cochran. “There are 15 sandwiches that are created in the play, and I have Corey Vasquez, who is the owner of Gold Rush Cafe, who is going to make four of those. And we are going to have samples of four of the sandwiches that are talked about in the play that the audience can try out at the end of the reading, as we do a little bit of a talk back.”
Cochran said the sandwiches will range from something as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to the much more complicated.
“It's interesting. As they each talk about their perfect sandwich, or what they think of as the perfect sandwich. They all are intense, wanting to make it feel just perfect. You know that ultimate, as one of the characters says, you know, that first bite should invite you to take even more,” he said. “You want it to be an invitation to your taste buds, to something that is more than just the everyday thing.”
Market House Theatre’s production of “Clyde’s” is a staged reading and not a full production. Cochran says there is a significant difference between it and a fully produced show including the lack of set design.
“The actors are seated in chairs, and they stand up and they walk to a music stand with their script to talk to the other actors in the scene. When they exit the scene, they walk back to the chairs and sit, and then I'll be reading the stage directions so that the audience can understand what's going on,” said Cochran.
“Clyde’s” will be presented as a staged reading on Friday, January 17th at 7:15 p.m. at Market House Theatre in studio 200. Ticket information and more can be found on the theatre’s website.
