Lynn Nottage’s tense, sometimes depressing drama *Sweat* is set in Reading, Pennsylvania, but it might as well be in Cleveland. At least that’s how it felt Saturday night watching the moving Cleveland Play House production directed by Laura Kepley. Written in 2015 and set in 2000 and 2008, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play moves forward and back in time to show how two generations dealt with drastic change thanks to cutbacks and recession. The Olstead steel plant they had given their lives to and the unions they had trusted seemed indifferent to their fate. It’s a gripping work, one that looks at past events and humanity with an unflinching gaze. Rather like a Shakespearean history play, it provides the necessary background (why heavy industry workers did very well — until they didn’t), but it isn’t a thinly disguised lecture. There’s plenty of drama too — with intimate confessions and battle scenes that produce disastrous results. See the full review at https://coolcleveland.com/2018/10/theater-review-sweat-cleveland-play-house-...