‘Sweat’ at Keegan Theatre Review: Labor Pains

metroweekly.com:

Sweat (★★★☆☆), staged to duly tense effect by Angelisa Gillyard at Keegan Theatre.Friends Tracey (Susan Marie Rhea) and Cynthia (Lolita Marie), coworkers for decades at a steel plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, are breadwinners for their families — wives and mothers who pull their weight on the line, and at home.

Yet, for all their diligence and dedication, they can’t be responsible for a husband’s addictions or a son’s violent impulses.

They can only live with the sometimes devastating consequences of their men’s actions.And neither can control or much influence how they’re treated by their bosses at the plant, where a labor dispute brings simmering tensions between friends, family, and fellow citizens to a steaming boil.

Tracey and Cyn don’t necessarily get the worst of what goes down in their favorite bar on the night hostilities finally explode into physical violence, but they’re left holding the broken pieces.Also, their friendship is tested in ways that add even greater complexity to these roles for performers Rhea and Marie, who acquit themselves brilliantly as Tracey and Cyn, often forming a fabulous trio with Santina Maiolatesi, as Jessie, the pair’s gin-soaked bar buddy and coworker.