Detroit Public Theatre draws audiences into hellish truck stop filled with vivid characters

Sometimes, hell can be a sandwich shop.

Skillfully alternating between big laughs, profound emotional beats and disturbing moments of sheer terror, “Clyde’s,” running through June 2 at Detroit Public Theatre, is set in a truck-stop sandwich joint where formerly incarcerated workers toil and dream and love and grow. They also pursue a quest to create the perfect sandwich, all the while remaining stuck in life (and in Clyde’s, specifically) because of their prison records.

Actually, it’s more of a classic purgatory: Montrellous, Rafael, Letitia and newcomer Jason slave away for the monstrous Clyde, a former inmate herself who hires ex-cons seeking reintegration into society but takes sick, deep joy from abusing and exploiting them in the worst ways day in and out while constantly reminding them that they have no other options. She's practically a human-trafficking operator, and under her ironfisted rule, hope is the enemy.

“Don’t disappoint me by having aspirations,” she seethes at one of the employees.

Will the workers achieve the redemption they need in order to escape hell’s kitchen?

Pulitzer-winning playwright Lynn Nottage’s wily script provides flashes of brilliance as the story moves along, but it’s at its best when it’s detailing the finely drawn characters who inhabit it. Brian Marable excels as sage sandwich savant Montrellous, forming a mighty foundation for other cast members to expand into their roles. Marie Muhammad shines brightly as the combative, guarded Letitia, and Erik Hernandez does beautifully with light comedy as inspired dreamer Rafael.

Alexander Pobutsky has possibly the toughest job as Jason, a character the audience is instantly poised to hate (no, the tattoos aren’t real!) and through whose eyes we learn the play’s landscape and occupants. He navigates the difficult transitions Jason goes through with a nicely modulated performance that delivers at least one gutting moment and scores some major laughs, especially late in the show.

DPT newcomer Kelli Crump threatens to steal the show as the utterly irredeemable Clyde, turning in a wild supporting performance that had a recent audience howling with laughter. Clyde is an actor’s dream role that runs the entire damned gamut of emotions and allows major scenery-chewing for a character who knows her actions have no consequences. The character is so comically outsized in her pure evil that Crump’s tremendous presence becomes something almost demonic. The fabulously bewigged Crump seems to channel a deliciously wicked combination of Nell Carter and Principal Ava of “Abbott Elementary.” Her work is must-see material.

With so many choice ingredients to work with, it couldn’t have been hard for director Courtney Burkett to whip up this delectable dish. Kudos are deserved, also, for Amelia Bransky’s impressive scenic design. Spending 90 minutes looking at her kitchen set will have you trying to muffle your growling stomach while you watch.

“Clyde’s” delivers a little bit of everything in one neat, brisk package. Hats off to DPT for an outstanding production. See it.

Same actor, same character, different play

Detroit Public Theatre's staging of “Clyde’s” marks Alexander Pobutsky’s second time playing the character of Jason.

The show is actually a sequel to “Sweat,” the play for which Lynn Nottage won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2017. Jason is one of the characters in “Sweat,” which depicts the crime that put him in prison as well as the time immediately after his release eight years later. By chance, Pobutsky played Jason in “Sweat” for another company, Detroit Repertory Theatre, last year.

The Hamtramck native is a busy, full-time actor who most recently appeared in the Oscar-winning film “American Fiction.”

“I did 'Sweat' at the Detroit Rep last year and I was living in Detroit at the time, and then I noticed that another theater was doing ‘Clyde’s,’" he recalled. "And I was like, ‘Man, that would be really great, to play Jason twice.’ I think there’s a really small handful of people that have gotten that chance. He’s the only character that goes from ‘Sweat’ to the sequel.”

Pobutsky, 31, grew up in Hamtramck, Ferndale and Royal Oak before leaving Michigan at 17 to pursue a career in acting. He said it’s easier to play Jason in “Clyde’s” as opposed to “Sweat” because the character has been humbled.

“Jason is so different in this show,” he said. “In the first show, he’s a lot cockier and more abrasive. He hasn’t really had a ton of real problems, I think. His dad’s not really around, but other than that, he’s had a pretty good life. I played him bigger (in ‘Sweat’) because he was more of a personality in the sense that he took up space.

“The difficulty of playing Jason (in ‘Clyde’s’) is that he goes from not really wanting to be seen, or being unseen, to believing: ‘I can hold space. Yeah, I have value, and my voice is worth being heard.’”

Pobutsky is currently writing a mockumentary TV show in the style of “The Office” and working on a sketch comedy show with a partner that will be performed in Boston soon, with eyes on a tour after. He recently did five episodes of Hulu/FX’s “Justified: City Primeval,” in which he played an Albanian from — wait for it — Hamtramck.

“Total coincidence,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t have to do any research because I was like, ‘Oh, this is just like the dudes I would see at the car wash — you know, just the guy in a tracksuit listening to techno,” he said with a laugh.

He’s also currently waiting for word on a callback audition for an unnamed Paramount series.

“I just had a callback in New York for that,” he said. “So, in the middle of doing ‘Clyde’s,’ I did this show Wednesday and flew to New York right after that. Did the callback in New York in person at noon on Thursday, then flew back later that day. So I was in New York less than 24 hours for something I might not even book. That’s still up in the air, but that films in Europe and sounds like a really good show.”

“I don’t know that I really wanted to play (Jason) again,” he said, “because it was a tough part and I didn’t like being that dude. But then, in this show, it’s a very different experience. He’s kind of sweet and a lot softer. He has these scarlet letters all over. He’s totally branded with stuff that screams: ‘I hate the world and I hate difference. I’m a xenophobe.’ But he doesn’t want to wear that, and it’s not actually reflective of him. He says in the play: ‘The tattoos tell you I was trying to survive. That’s all.’”

He said he wants audiences who see “Clyde’s” to think about what the formerly incarcerated encounter in society when they come back into the real world. The cast worked with PCAP, the Prison Creative Arts Project, to inject reality into their performances.

“I didn’t even understand that gravity of that until the PCAP people came. When I first started this gig, I was just doing a play. And then they came and spoke to us, and I swear, I think I cried the whole time. Yeah, it broke me to hear about them having those experiences.

“I didn’t fully grasp the story that we were telling. It would not be the same show if it wasn’t for them coming and talking to us. It totally changed everything. And so I want people to, hopefully, think differently about what formerly incarcerated people have to deal with.”

Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@freepress.com.

'Clyde's'

Through June 2

Detroit Public Theatre

3960 Third Ave., Detroit

detroitpublictheatre.org

$40, $47

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Public Theatre tackles Lynn Nottage's character-rich 'Clyde's'