Visibility for the Invisible

3. The New Yorker describes Lynn Nottage as having "built a career on making invisible people visible." How does Sweat accomplish this and do you think enabling visibility is important? Why or why not?

Plays and other theatrical performances are often thought of as glamorous and entertaining, and as a result, the storylines of plays are typically emphasized and dramatic to fulfill this idea. However, Sweat is a modern play that displays the reality of communities in the Rust Belt in the early 2000s. It details the everyday lives of the working class while they experience changes in their relationships and their communities. As the New Yorker has said, Sweat makes “invisible people visible.” The events in Sweat focus on a community that never seems to appear on the news, but still faces the consequences of global events. For instance, while, nationally, “thousands of Latin American immigrants are returning home as U.S. jobs dry up,” there are also Latin American citizens in Reading, like Oscar, who are searching for jobs that will pay them enough for an adequate life (Nottage 110). Lynn Nottage presents this community in a way that allows similar communities to see themselves in it, and completely different communities to recognize what might be going on just 30 minutes away from them.

I believe visibility is crucial for the cooperation and unity of society. Oftentimes, the struggles within small communities apply to multiple people in society at large. But people don’t see the other communities that are facing similar issues, and this is when self-isolation begins and people start believing they are alone in these experiences. This leads to a lack of hope for needed change. For instance, Stan mentions he’s not voting anymore because he knows that “no matter what lever I pull it will lead to disappointment” (Nottage 78). Another aspect of self-isolation is ignorance. In Sweat, Tracey displays a level of ignorance for important worldly topics and as a result, makes racist comments like, “You Puerto Ricans are burning shit down all over Reading” towards Oscar (Nottage 21). However, when people are able to see their own struggles represented in communities besides their own, as well as the struggles of other groups, their entire mindset can change. Enabling visibility in society allows people to normalize struggles, but not to devalue them. By recognizing this, communities can begin to restore power in minorities, realize that there is a much larger front than previously perceived, and understand that their community extends far beyond the boundaries of their town.