You may never again think of having “just” a sandwich for lunch after seeing the latest show at Portland Stage. The creations that the workers prepare in the onstage kitchen are works of culinary art, full of thought, feeling, and, most of all, hope.

Lynn Nottage’s 2019 play “Clyde’s” is about much more than preparing yummy food at a truck stop in Pennsylvania. It’s about bringing people back from a sort of hell toward a better place after lives defined by bad choices made in bad situations. It’s also a very funny, heartwarming visit with a bunch of mostly likeable characters (the title character is a stubborn exception) who are stuck, so it seems, in limbo between incarceration and being fully free.

Clyde, played by Breezy Leigh, is an ex-con and the unforgiving boss of a kitchen full of people she has the power to send back to prison. They must do exactly what she says — prepare standard, generic restaurant fare and be quick about it — or else. In this production, directed by Dominique Rider, Leigh struts and shouts in a performance full of bullying bluster, cynical commentary and just the faintest touch of a deeply repressed vulnerability.

Chief cook Montrellous, played by Lance E. Nichols, is a type of “shaman” from a not-too-distant past who has his own ideas about what goes into preparing sandwiches that nourish not only the body but the soul. His attempts to teach his unusual approach in combining ingredients and giving almost spiritual attention to detail impresses the younger kitchen workers while angering Clyde. His conflict with his boss provides dramatic highs and lows, hearty laughs, as well as bits of important philosophical insight to the others.

Nichols further conveys the hard-won maturity of his character through carefully paced revelations about his own trials. Indeed, back stories for each of the characters emerge during the play.

Letitia, played with cute, brassy energy by Latrisha Talley, is a single mom who is mostly an innocent victim of circumstance. Talley enlivens the ensemble with a youthful verve that makes Letitia an understandable object for the affection of Rafael, played by Roland Ruiz as a macho live wire eager to be her man.

Derek Chariton plays Jason, who, though showing gang tattoos, is suffering quietly from his past mistakes. When Jason opens up to the mentorship of Montrellous, he gains a sense of belonging to the group and the larger society, and gives the audience the play’s dramatic highlight.

Personality-defining costumes by Nia Safarr Banks and nuanced lighting by Mary Lana Rice frame dramatic tonal shifts on the set designed by Germán Cárdenas Alaminos. The sound design by Kathy Ruvuna includes engaging interludes of multi-cultural jazz that further a sense of each character’s search for what Montrellous calls “sustenance” in difficult situations.

Steve Feeney is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.

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