Determinedly bucking this trend, we now have ‘Sweat’, an American import by writer, Lynn Nottage, who researched diligently and came to understand that the characters who would people her script – blue collar workers from the Pennsylvania rust belt – were not monsters, but decent, flawed humans having their lives smashed to pulp by forces way beyond their control: viz the North American Free Trade Agreement and the financial crash of 2007-8.

Evan, a parole officer (an assured and authoritative performance by Aaron Cobham) conducts a couple of no-holds-barred interviews with deeply troubled clients. One, Jason (Lewis Gibben, all edge and anger) has had his face tattooed while inside and seems to carry the stain of half-absorbed white supremacism. The other, Chris (Abdul Sessay, grimly contrite yet far from humbled) has been touched by faith. Though they were incarcerated separately, whatever crime they committed they shared: “What we did was unforgivable,” laments Chris to Evan.

The body of the story is now told in flashback.

Parole interviews aside, and barring a couple of domestic detours, the action of ‘Sweat’ takes place in the local bar, the preferred venue for holding birthday celebrations or for simply unwinding after a day’s work at the plant. There is drinking, dancing, laughter, the occasional minor spat, then more drinking, a little flirting, more dancing. The women, it’s clear, are at the heart of this working community.

The life of the bar revolves around three female friends; the caustic Tracey (Pooky Quesnel, all tease and temper), Cynthia (Carla Henry, solid and rational, except where Brucie is concerned), and the statuesque dipsomaniac Jessie (Kate Kennedy, wallowing to great effect) still in denial about her husband quitting her for a younger model.

Younger, more innocent versions of Chris and Jason flit in and out of this setting – wild, energetic, but essentially, it would seem, harmless.

We soon learn that this is a one company town. Everyone works (or has worked) at the plant. What’s more, they are proud of it, company men and women, who boast of having been with the same employer not for years but for decades. The plant offers reliable, well-paid work, even if those jobs take a physical toll. When young Chris speaks of paying his own way through college to become a teacher, his charming ne’er-do-well father, Brucie (a slick and sleazy Chris Jack), tries to talk him out of it. Workers at the plant can earn better money than a teacher. By the time Brucie changes his mind on this, it’s too late.

Minor frictions aside, what Nottage wants us to see is the workers’ sense of commitment to the factory. Even young Jason sees his working life as belonging entirely to this single employer. Sure, he wants to retire early and indulge in his passion for motorbikes, but his feeling of being betrayed by Chris’s ambition to teach is grounded in a sense of shared destiny: “I wanted us to retire together.”

Only Stan (Jonathan Kerrigan, clinging onto decency and modest wisdom like a common man’s Statue of Liberty), who runs the bar, hints at the one-way nature of this devotion. When he suffered an industrial injury, he tells the women, the first he heard from the company was a visit from their lawyer to check he wouldn’t be suing them. It seems he did not. Stan manages the bar, but does not own it.

Cynthia announces her intention to apply for a promotion – off the production floor and into the offices. Having first belittled the chances of one of them breaking through into that other world, Tracey – citing her own seniority – says she’ll also apply, without either hope or expectation.

Tensions rise when Cynthia is appointed, and Tracey starts a rumour that ‘positive discrimination’ played a part (Cynthia is African American). Old friendships begin to creak and yield to economic strains.

Before long, bigger issues take hold. There is talk of redundancies, of hefty imposed pay cuts, of the transference of plant machinery to Mexico (where labour is cheaper, unions more pliant). Who else should the “high-ups” get to break the bad news other than the new girl, recently promoted from the shop floor?

And then, of course, there’s Oscar (winningly played by Marcello Cruz), the Columbian immigrant who helps out in the bar; liked but looked down on by the children and grandchildren of earlier generations of immigrant, and deliberately kept out of the plant by a closed-shop union policy. Now, however, the company is circulating leaflets in Spanish, inviting new workers at pay levels below what the union demands, but notably more generous than the hourly rate for bar work. Oscar sees his chance.

Where should loyalties lie? What constitutes solidarity in this greed-induced crisis? Who is to blame and who is to be the scapegoat?

So we come to the act of brutality that will send Jason and Chris to prison (enacted with sufficient commitment to have some on the banquettes wince and recoil).

‘Sweat’ might benefit from a ruthless edit; at times, it ambles along at a small town pace asking its audience’s indulgence, rather than demanding our attention. Ironically, given the writer’s ethnicity, Cynthia’s pride in being a woman of colour breaking new ground with her promotion (and the dilemmas this throws at her) feels somewhat underwritten.

The single set (designed by Good Teeth) is suitably sparse and brutal, but more could perhaps be made (especially early on) of the metallic sparks of the rust belt environment.

The final scene brings us back to the here and now. It is brief and underplayed, some might say underwritten, others might say glib. For my money, it strikes a difficult but truthful note showing us a glimmer of humanity. And what more is there to be hoped for, until the revolution?

Sweat is at The Royal Exchange, Manchester from 26 April to 25 May 2024. Age guidance 14+

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The story is strongly reminiscent of Jane Austen’s novels, with its gossiping old maids, flirting officers, sparkling heroine, and careful balance of comedy with unspoken love. The central premise of mistaken identity – that Phoebe Throssel successfully fools all around her by adopting an alter ego, the vivacious Miss Livvy, simply by removing her spinster cap and glasses – may seem ridiculous, but a crucial line is drawn between ridiculing the situation and the main characters. The love story between Phoebe and Captain Valentine Brown remains heartfelt, kept in tact by both the script and finely tuned comic performances from the entire cast.

Jessica Baglow excels in the role of the heroine, bringing a complex and remarkable character to life with energy and naturalism. Phoebe Throssel’s observations on ageing, love and propriety – and the double standards applied to men and women – are still relevant today, and her fight to recover her damaged self-esteem after ten years as a school teacher is particularly pertinent in current times, when anxiety and low confidence seem to be on the rise.

In this production, Quality Street is located in Halifax, which is both the location of the first factory and Northern Broadsides’ home. This allows the company to well and truly put their stamp on the play, not just with Yorkshire accents, but with an additional cast of Quality Street factory workers.

These characters – based on the production’s Creation Squad of real-life former Mackintosh employees – appear throughout, commenting on the action as they change the set in their white coats and red caps. It’s an addition that an adds an extra dimension of humour and bridges the gap between regency and contemporary England. However, their opening prologue does outstay its welcome and the epilogue – a post-show discussion between the two sets of characters – undercuts the mood created by the final scene.

Another modern touch is the staging of the ball scene, which opens the second act and functions as the turning point in the play’s action. Instead of ladies in pale muslin gowns dancing in ordered lines to violins, the audience is greeted by music with a beat, 70s disco-inspired dance moves and dresses in a dazzling rainbow of Quality Street wrapper colours. It’s surprising, irreverent and fun.

Quality Street is a welcome dose of theatrical escapism, drawing its audience into the Miss Throssels’ cosy blue and white room and plying them with humour and romance, and is as inviting as a freshly opened box of chocolates.

Northern Broadsides‘ Quality Street is at The Lowry, Salford Quays from 25-29 February 2020.

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