Ticket prices for West End run won’t make you Sweat

PRIZE-WINNING play Sweat is moving from the Donmar Warehouse into the West End. Actress Martha Plimpton told me she’s delighted Lynn Nottage’s play is transferring into the Gielgud Theatre for ‘a good, short, sexy run’.

‘It just feels right to take it to a wider audience,’ Plimpton (pictured) said of the play, about three close women friends who work at the same Pennsylvania factory, which had its final performance at the Donmar last Saturday.

Plimpton, who plays Tracey, a single mother whose son gets a job at the same plant, is the only actor (so far) who has signed up for the move.

She gives a searing portrait of a woman who clashes with a black friend who becomes a manager at the factory where jobs are being let go.

‘There are no good guys in this play, but there are also no absolute bad guys,’ Plimpton said. ‘The history of, for want of a better phrase, white trash in the U.S. is a very complicated one.’

The white heat of the drama comes to the boil when its three main topics — race, class and globalisation — are hurled together.

The play’s producers (who include Mark Rubinstein, Gavin Kalin and Joe Baker) and theatre owner Cameron Mackintosh are hoping to attract a diverse audience. So there will be tickets for as little as £15; and for each performance, 350 seats at £25 or less — 100 of them in the stalls. They go on sale today at 10am.

Sweat runs for 50 performances, from June 7 through July 20.