Sweat

“[…] Money got a way of running outcha pocket. Nobody tells you that no matter how hard you work there will never be enough money to rest.” 

Chris reflects that no matter how hard he works at Olstead’s, he feels unable to save “enough money to rest.” In place of “rest” and time for personal growth and reflection, he feels trapped in a cycle of consumption, constantly pursuing the next expensive electronic gadget or must-have item. This moment further highlights the particular struggles of this generation of workers, and foreshadows the untenability of a present-day “working class.” Even as salaries and benefits are cut, workers are socially pressured to consume far beyond their economic means. This moment also begins to develop the theme of working and saving toward a better future (which may or may not ultimately exist for young men like Chris, whose factory jobs are being outsourced to other countries). 

“Punch in, punch out, and at the end of the day you end up with a box of donuts and diabetes. My man, where’s your imagination? You need to get on a bus and do some traveling.” 

Jason and Chris discuss their very different plans for the future. Whereas Chris has been accepted to college—and dreams of becoming a teacher and seeing the world beyond Reading—Jason falters when attempting to describe his future goals. He contrives a story about opening a Dunkin Donuts in Reading, prompting Chris to question his imagination. 

This moment further develops the play’s running interest in future dreams versus nostalgia for the past (and loyalty to one’s legacy). Though Chris recognizes the value of cultivating ambitions and developing a broad world view, he also feels guilty about abandoning men like his father, Brucie—who was deeply committed to his union at the textile mill—and Jason, who clearly intends to spend the rest of his life in Reading. Herein, Nottage insinuates the complexity of many residents’ relationships with dying industrial landscapes (and their reasons for remaining even though there are few opportunities). 

“Yeah, forty-fucking nine, but listen, I was thinking the other day, I gotta do this for the next, what? Fifteen-twenty years. You know this! Worrying. The hustle, man, my pop didn’t go through this shit. I mean he…he clocked in every day until he didn’t, and he went out with a nice package. He went out on an eighteen-day cruise through the Greek Islands last October. Me, shit, I run the full mule, I put in the time, do the right thing, don’t get me wrong. I had some good years…But dude, tell me what I did wrong, huh?” 

Brucie evaluates the differences between his father’s “nice” retirement package and the “hustle” he has had to go through to meet his basic needs working at the factory. This moment continues to build on the theme of generational differences and major changes to the ways factories operate (as an extension of broader changes to the US economy). This moment also foreshadows the dark turns Brucie’s strike is about to take (and the struggles his son, Chris, will go through with his own strike).

“I’m not receiving that message! Last week, I was at the union office signing up for some bullshit training and this old white cat, whatever, gets in my face, talking about how we took his job. We? I asked him who he was talking about, and he pointed at me. ME? So I said, if you ain’t noticed I’m in the same fucking line as you. Hello?! You’d think that would put him down. But, no. He’s a scratch on the vinyl, going on and on about us coming here and ruining everything. Like I’m fresh off the boat or some shit. He don’t know my biography. October 2nd, 1952, my father picked his last bale of cotton. He packed his razor and a Bible and headed North. Ten days later he had a job at Dixon’s Hosieries. He clawed his way up from the filth of the yard to Union Rep. So, I don’t understand it. This damn blame game, I got enough of that in my marriage.” 

Brucie describes how—as an African American participating in the textile mill strike—he not only finds himself fighting against the decisions of factory management, but pitted against White workers who feel a false sense of ownership over their struggle. In defense of their heritage—and their nostalgia for days of prosperity—some White factory workers egregiously believe that any person of color is out to “take their jobs.” This form of “blam[ing]” and scapegoating—turning anger onto the most readily available and vulnerable targets, rather than the upper level management that is truly at fault—is later repeated by Tracey and Jason when the bar’s Colombian American busboy, Oscar, becomes a “scab” worker.

“Well, my family’s been here a long time. Since the twenties, okay? They built the house that I live in. They built this town. My grandfather was German, and he could build anything. Cabinets, fine furniture, anything. He had these amazing hands. […] And those hands, let me tell you, they were solid, worker hands, you know, and they really, really knew how to make things. Beautiful things. […] My grandfather was the real thing. A craftsman…And I remember when I was a kid, I mean eight or nine, we’d go downtown to Pen with Opa. To walk and look in store windows. Downtown was real nice back then. You’d get dressed up to go shopping. […] But what I really loved was that he’d take me to office buildings, banks…you name it, and he’d point out the woodwork. And if you got really, really close he’d show me some detail that he’d carved for me. […] It was back when if you worked with your hands people respected you. It was a gift.”

Sweat’s explorations of nostalgia continue as Tracey poignantly remembers her grandfather, a German craftsman revered for working with his hands. The fact that her grandfather played a direct role in Reading’s construction gives Tracey a deep sense of connection with the city’s history and legacy (and, by extension, a sense of ownership). Thus, the play subtly suggests that Tracey is suspicious of anyone who claims a job or privilege she believes is rightfully hers (as someone with such a longstanding history). The play suggests that this kind of nostalgia—and romanticization of the past—prevents many Reading residents from seeing the full scope of what’s happening around them. By bringing Oscar and his Spanish-language job posting for Olstead’s into the scene, the play also foreshadows the false blame that White factory workers with long histories—such as Tracey—will cast on people of color who step in as “scab” workers during the strike. 

“Twenty-four years, and I can’t remember talking to anyone in the office, except to do paperwork. I mean some of these folks have been working here as long as us, but they’re as unfamiliar as a stranger sitting next to you on the bus.” 

The first day after Tracey’s promotion, she attempts to return to her old position on the floor, out of habit. This habitual slip into her regular work mode and space makes the physical separation (and different environment) of her management position all the more jarring. This moment vividly illustrates the removal between management and workers that Stan earlier alludes to in Scene 2. 

“I guess, I wish…I had gotten to see the world. You know, left Berks, if only for a year. That’s what I regret. Not the work. I regret the fact that for a little while it seemed like, I don’t know, there was possibility. I think about that Jessie on the other side of the world and what she woulda seen.” 

In conversation with Stan on her birthday, Jessie deepens the play’s explorations of nostalgia and questions of future change. For Jessie, nostalgia consists of wondering what might have been, what she might have seen if she had made different decisions. This moment emphasizes how deeply factory workers like Jessie are enveloped in Reading, how the “other side of the world” feels like an inaccessible source of wonder. They are aware that there is much of the world that is unseen and unknown to them, but stay locked in old habits and patterns, and thus remain subjects of this intangible wonder. 

“I know what’s important, don’t think because I went upstairs that I can’t see the grit on the floor. I got the same aches and pains as you guys.” 

Cynthia’s friends confront her with their sense of betrayal. They feel that she has sold out by joining the air-conditioned wing of the factory, that she has now sided with management (as they begin proposing changes that could hurt the floor workers). Cynthia attempts to reassure her friends that she is in solidarity with them and has not forgotten what it’s like to work in their environment, that she plans to advocate for the “aches and pains” she has also experienced. This moment, however, illustrates the difficult in-between position Cynthia has been put into by management. Though she has risen up off the floor, she does not feel fully in league with the workers or with management. 

“My two cents, take the small concessions. […] Cuz when we walked out of the textile mill thinking big, they locked us out, beat down our optimism, and we couldn’t get back in. And nearly two years later there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it. Don’t let them bring those temps in—fight it. Because once they do, you’re out. You hear me? I wouldn’t have said that six months ago, but I’m telling you truth.”

Brucie delivers these lines after hearing that his son’s factory has moved their machines from the floor. Having been through an unsuccessful, long-running strike himself, Brucie knows all too well that this action means jobs have been outsourced and layoffs are forthcoming. He begs his son to learn from his own mistakes, and to accept “the small concessions” while he can still save his job. These words are emotionally jarring to Chris, who has long idolized his father as a strong-standing proud union man. 

“With this NAFTA bullshit they can move the whole factory to Mexico tomorrow morning, and a woman like you will stand for sixteen hours and be happy making a fraction of what they’re paying you.”

Cynthia attempts to explain how the changes transpiring in the factory go far beyond her control, and are in fact based on changes at the level of an international trade agreement (NAFTA). She grimly outlines the stakes of her friends’ jobs: Because Olstead’s can pay Mexican workers “a fraction of what they’re paying” the current workers who have been there for multiple generations, the only hope of saving their jobs is to accept 60% pay cuts and benefit reductions. This scene vividly illustrates just how much the national and international economy is changing, and the drastic effects these changes have on the working class. 

“You’re dealing with vipers. The game’s changed! They’ll lock you out. And once they get you out, they’re not gonna let you back in.” 

Here, Cynthia desperately tries to convince her friends that resisting the changes factory management is proposing will be futile. NAFTA has enabled the factory to outsource labor, so the union has lost its negotiating power. This warning—offered before the union vote to accept or deny concessions—sets a tone of hopeless desperation for the strike. The union’s fight is clearly one based on principal—and nostalgia for times when they had more authority—rather than the possibility of a favorable outcome. 

“Shit. I locked out my friends, Stan. I explained, I fought, I begged. But those cowards upstairs still had me tape a note to the door telling ‘em they weren’t welcome. Ninety-five degrees. I’m standing in the door watching some irritable fat guy change the locks. Shut outta the plant. And you know what? I wonder if they gave me this job on purpose. Pin a target on me so they can stay in their air-conditioned offices.” 

This moment poignantly melds the themes of aspiration and striving for a better future with racial tension and scapegoating. Cynthia bemoans her dreams of self-betterment that drove her to apply for this managerial position. She believes the position was not a positive step up, but rather an attempt to “pin a target” on her and make her a scapegoat for unpopular decisions. As Tracey reflects earlier in the play, management’s choice to promote Cynthia may have been motivated by her race, and the understanding that White factory workers are inclined to project blame onto people of color when they perceive that their jobs are at stake. 

“Don’t know. Don’t get it. But, I watch these politicians talking bullshit and I get no sense that they even know what’s going on beyond the windshield of their cars as they speed past. But, I decided a month ago that I’m not voting, cuz no matter what lever I pull it will lead to disappointment.” 

As Cynthia bemoans her emotionally difficult situation—being forced to lock out her friends—Stan explains that he has spoken to many other people in her position, remarking that his cousin at another nearby mill had to lay off 400 people. He darkly muses that business at the bar has been good as people are drinking more these days.

With his reflection on the mass scale of these layoffs, Stan declares that he will not be voting. This declaration marks a major transition from Stan’s perspective at the beginning of the play (when he expressed the importance of keeping up with the news and participating in the events that will affect your future). Here, he communicates his feelings of loss and his complete lack of agency in a world where lives of working class people are shaped by politicians who can’t and don’t identify with the working class.

“Do you know what it’s like to get up and have no place to go? I ain’t had the feeling ever. I’m a worker. I have worked since I could count money. That’s me. And I’m thinking I’m not gonna go out, you know why? Because I don’t wanna spend the money, because when my unemployment runs out I’ll have nothing.” 

In a state of deep sadness and low self-worth, Tracey confronts Cynthia at the bar. Cynthia has invited Tracey to the bar to celebrate her birthday, and Tracey has come with the hope of reviving their friendship, of convincing Cynthia to forsake her management position and join the strike. Tracey first appeals to Cynthia’s empathy, communicating the personal sense of loss she feels from being locked out of her job. Because multiple generations of Tracey’s family have worked at Olstead’s, she feels a loss of identity without a “place to go” every day. Even within the town she grew up in—that her grandfather helped build—she feels unmoored, insecure, and aimless.

It is also worth noting that Tracey alludes to the liminal timeframe of her unemployment: A question of what will become of her in the near future. Because the play has recently shown a flash-forward to 2008—when Tracey is battling a pill addiction and Cynthia is living in poverty and squalor—Tracey's terror of the future in 2000 resonates even more painfully. 

“I remember thinking that’s my friend. She’s tough as hell. Don’t mess with her. She’ll fight for what she loves, even if it means getting scrappy and looking ugly.”

Tracey appeals to Cynthia by recalling a memory of a moment when they were both young, when Cynthia fought off a woman who was attracted to her husband. Through this memory, Tracey hopes to appeal to the “old” Cynthia—the Cynthia who worked the floor of the factory with her—and convince Cynthia to abandon her new position above her. This memory further illustrates how nostalgia—and tender memories of the past—drive the judgements of workers such as Tracey.

“You don’t know what it’s like to walk in my shoes. I’ve absorbed a lotta shit over the years, but I worked hard to get off that floor. Call me selfish, I don’t care, call me whatever you need to call me, but remember, one of us has to be left standing to fight.” 

Though Cynthia appears to feel pain recalling Tracey’s memory of her as a “fighter,” understanding how Tracey is trying to appeal to her, she replies that someone has to keep fighting. Thus, Cynthia suggests that the world around them has changed so completely that she cannot re-embody Tracey’s old memory of her. So doing, she reunites the play’s themes of nostalgia versus forward movement and future aspirations. Even in the midst of this struggle, Cynthia cleaves to her position because she “worked hard to get off that floor.” 

“You said, […] ‘We…we will not continue to bare out backs for them to strike us down.’ […] I remember the fire in your voice and how it made me feel. And after school, me and my friends rode our bikes to the mill and watched you guys picketing. You looked like warriors, arms linked, standing together. […] And you know, yesterday, as I was walking the line, and listening to Lester tell us what we’d have to sacrifice to keep the plant running, all I could think about was your words that evening. You! What it means to stand strong.” 

Continuing the play’s examinations of nostalgia—and the foggy judgement it facilitates—Chris recalls a poignant memory of his father at a union meeting. Chris explains that this cherished memory has reverberated in his mind throughout the strike, giving him the fortitude to “stand strong” and sacrifice his desire

“I’m just trying to get paid, that’s all. For three years I’ve been carrying nothing but crates. […] My father, he swept up the floor in a factory like Olstead’s—those fuckas wouldn’t even give him a union card. But he woke up every morning at four A.M. because he wanted a job in the steel factory, it was the American way, so he swept fucking floors thinking, ‘One day they’ll let me in.’ I know how he feels, people come in here everyday. They brush by me without seeing me. No: ‘Hello, Oscar.’ If they don’t see me, I don’t need to see them.” 

After Stan warns Oscar that striking workers at Olstead’s will direct their anger onto him—for working as a “scab”—Oscar explains that, just as the White factory workers feel a certain entitlement to their jobs—he feels he has earned the right to pursue a better life. The accumulation of years spent “carrying nothing but crates” and the legacy of his father “sweep[ing] the floor in a factory” are Oscar’s own understanding of “the American way,” an inversion of Tracey’s nostalgic story about her grandfather helping to build the city of Reading.

This moment further develops the play’s interest in racial tensions and related scapegoating. Oscar observes that the bar’s parsons never notice or acknowledge him because he is Colombian American. Through this moment, the play also foreshadows that—just like Cynthia—Oscar will be the recipient of rage for actions he has no control over, simply because he is Colombian American and a readily available target for frustration.

“Sometimes I think we forget that we’re meant to pick up and go when the well runs dry. Our ancestors knew that. You stay put for too long, you get weighed down by things, things you don’t need. It’s true. Then your life becomes this pathetic accumulation of stuff. Emotional and physical junk. […] Nostalgia’s a disease. I’m not gonna be one of those guys that surrenders to it.”

As Chris and Jason enthuse about the strike—describing the ways it is escalating into violence toward “scabs”—Stan urges them to reconsider their loyalty to a cause that’s doomed to fail. He explains that nostalgia—and loyalty to the past—prevents people from moving forward with their lives. Ironically, he uses the example of “our ancestors” and their knowledge to illustrate the value of abandoning the past. So doing, Stan effectively narrates the play’s thesis on “nostalgia” and the role it plays in workers’ lives (within dying industrial cities like Reading). 

“I used to worry about what people would think if I didn’t want to work in a factory. Now they got us fighting for scraps. But, Stan said it, the writing’s on the wall, and we’re still out here pretending like we can’t read.” 

Stan’s words of warning about nostalgia—and letting go of the past—resonate deeply with Chris. After contemplating his words, Chris realizes he needs to let go of his romantic memories of Brucie and his false sense of loyalty to the union, the factory, and to Jason. Ironically—and tragically—Chris gains this moment of clarity and self-understanding only shortly before he and Jason commit a violent act (which results in his imprisonment and prevents him from pursuing his own future). 

“We got history here. Us! Me you, him, her! What the fuck does he have, huh? A green card that gives him the right to shit on everything we worked for?” 

In the play’s most pivotal scene—the violent act that ultimately leads to Chris and Jason’s imprisonment—Jason projects his anger and frustration over the failing strike onto Oscar. Just as Stan previously summarized, the nostalgia and sense of history that Tracey has passed onto Jason generates a false sensation of ownership (and a connected sensation that Oscar—a person of color seeking a better life—is stealing “everything we worked for”).

“I ain’t thought about that day in the bar in a long time. Now I can’t get away from it. Every place I walk in this city reminds me of that day, it’s like the whole city was in that bar and got turned upside down in the same way I did.” 

In the play’s penultimate scene, Nottage focuses back on Jason’s meeting with his parole officer, Evan (generating the sensation of coming full circle). This moment suggests that Jason and Chris’s violent confrontation with Oscar serves as a stand-in for the broader frustrations of the working class in Reading-like cities all over America. This moment also gestures toward the ways in which many people like Jason similarly scapegoat people of color (especially in “Trump’s America,” wherein class tensions often enmesh with racial tensions).

The circularity of this scene (set in the same room as the play’s first scene) further enhances the atmosphere of enclosure developed throughout the play. Furthermore, the scene’s circularity generates resonance for the final scene (which features a full-circle role reversal between Stan and Oscar).

“Most folks think it’s the guilt or rage that destroys us in the end, but I know from experience that it’s the shame that eats us away until we disappear.” 

Evan’s words—“it’s the shame that eats us away until we disappear”—serve as a haunting prelude to the final scene of the play, wherein Chris and Jason finally confront their shame over what they did to Oscar and Stan. The word “disappear” is a poignant instance of verbal irony (suggestive of Oscar’s previously described feelings of invisibility.