SWEAT The Pulitzer Prize Winning Play on Broadway is Brilliant, Brutal & Heartbreaking

Lynn Nottage (b Amer 64) is a highly honored playwright.  She's bestowed the Pulitzer Prize for "Running" ('09) and this year's Pulitzer for Prize.  "Sweat" takes place in a dying industrial town in PA between 2000-2008.  Her writing is forceful, fearless and indelible.  The cast of characters centers around 3 female friends & co-workers in an industrial plant; Cynthia, Tracey and Jessie.  The central meeting place is the neighborhood pub where the 3 women meet regularly to celebrate & commiserate.  The clever staging & timeline portend the steadying downturn resulting from the town's plant cutbacks & layoffs that builds to a violent climax.  The misdirected aggression is abhorrent although discernible with mounting resentments brewing from financial strains & perceived injustices.  The play begins with 2 young men being interrogated by their parole officer.  The reason for their incarceration is ambiguous but this adds to the mounting intrigue & intensity.  The 2 young men, one black & the other a white supremacist, were longtime friends who had worked together & whose mothers were close friends.  The local pub & plant holds a history that melded firm friendships & provided a sustainable wage.  The company has an opening for a supervisor.   The women all vie  for this elevated, higher paying position.  Friction amongst friends arises when Cynthia, the black woman is given the job.  Cynthia is proud to be amongst management although she considers her race  may have been why she was chosen.  She tries to convey to her friends & former assembly workers, she maintains their best interests.  Nonetheless, wage cuts are asked by management.  The cuts are unacceptable & the union votes to strike.  Cynthia advises her friends to make concessions or face losing their jobs.  Oscar has a menial job working at the bar run by Stan. Stan was a former factory worker until he sustained a debilitating leg injury on the job. Oscar, born in America of Hispanic heritage seizes the opportunity to gain work at the factory for better pay and crosses the picket lines. The animosity & resentment amongst the strikers is palatable & disturbing.  Stan is the voice of reason amidst rising hostilities.  Regardless, misdirected feelings of anger boil over with calamitous results.  "Sweat" is a poignant social commentary.  The ensemble cast is perfect.  The playwright  knowingly dissects issues of social polarization, economic crisis, addiction, incarceration, racism and decency with calculated, cutting precision.  All points of views are understandable, even unforgivable acts.  SWEAT is sweltering work of genius.