Clyde’s, Donmar Warehouse, review: Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage’s new drama fails to convince

Dramas set in frenzied kitchens on both sides of the Atlantic are all the rage currently. There is the brilliance of television series The Bear and Boiling Point and now theatre is getting in on the action with Clyde’s, which takes place in a truck-stop diner.

The writer is Lynn Nottage, queen of the depiction of fraying communities in the US’s post-industrial Rust Belt, and here she takes us back to the town of Reading, Pennsylvania, the scene of her almighty Pulitzer Prize-winning hit Sweat, which received a triumphant production at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2018.

Sweat made the name of director Lynette Linton, who is at the helm again here. Yet lightning hasn’t stuck twice, as Clyde’s is uneven and overly schematic. Nottage offers a mouth-watering selection of ingredients, which she frustratingly fails to cook to perfection.

The quartet of kitchen workers here are all ex-convicts, a fact which tyrannical boss Clyde (Gbemisola Ikumelo), a former prisoner herself, is singularly unwilling to either forgive or forget. An over-the-top panto villain with no redeeming and/or explanatory backstory, she revels in taunting her staff with their lack of other employment options.

Encouraged by de facto leader Montrellous (Giles Terera), who elevates the mindful making of sandwiches to the status of a quasi-religion, the staff compete to dream up the perfect pairing of bread and filling.

Montrellous has culinary aspirations for the diner that Clyde, who takes serious offence at the word “garnish”, is always perversely delighted to quash.

Single mum Letitia (Ronke Adekoluejo) and Rafael (Sebastian Orozco) are full of spark and attitude, quite the comedy double act, when they are introduced to newcomer Jason (Patrick Gibson).

He has a face intimidatingly full of racist gang tattoos and claims to want to be left in peace, but a hundred minutes of drama means that wish is unlikely to be fulfilled. Backgrounds are gradually sketched in via outbursts of truth-telling of varying degrees of plausibility and the kitchen’s climactic “I am Spartacus” moment is unconvincing.

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A lot of sandwiches are crafted with kinetic commitment in designer Frankie Bradshaw’s kitchen set of individual workstations; the Donmar is missing a money-making trick by not having a selection for sale afterwards to punters with whetted taste buds.

Spirited though the performances undoubtedly are, none of the actors manages to make complete sense of their characters.

Nottage has not given them enough to go on, although Adekoluejo and Terera work hard to add shading and depth.

Imperfect though Clyde’s is, her insights into marginalised lives are always to be welcomed. Let us hope that there will be a third trip to the Rust Belt, but that it will be executed better than this.

To 2 December (020 3282 3808, donmarwarehouse.com)