Sweat

Nottage describes Jason as “white American of German descent, twenty-one/twenty-nine” (vii), alluding to the play’s presentation of two different Jasons: the 21-year-old man in 2000 and the 29-year-old man in 2008. He is the son of Tracey, whose family has worked at Olstead’s for generations.

At 21, Jason works on the floor of the Olstead mill alongside his close friend, Chris. Jason is rough-mannered, but warm-hearted, and his tough-talking is often a facade for tender feelings, insecurities, and fears. Though he feels a close connection with Chris, it is clear that Chris is the more intelligent of the two, and Jason isn’t quite sure what to do with this understanding.

Unlike Chris, Jason seems content with his role as a factory worker. When Chris and Jason talk about their future plans, Jason reveals that he has not considered moving outside of Reading, and that he feels deeply tied to his family’s legacy of working at the mill. Jason feels hurt and betrayed when Chris shares his desire to go to college. Though Jason gruffly mocks Chris’s aspirations—claiming he will return and beg for his old job at the mill—it is clear that this mocking is simply a cover-up for his fear of losing his closest friend. Jason may also fear—albeit on a subconscious level—that his job at Olstead’s—and his family’s legacy—will soon disappear.

This deep-seated anguish leads Jason to carry out an act of violence on Oscar near the end of the play. For Jason, Oscar becomes a scapegoat who represents the end to a family history he cherishes.

Chris is “African-American, twenty-one/twenty-nine” (vii). He is the son of Cynthia and Brucie. Like Jason, Chris has a long family history connected with Olstead’s. Unlike Jason, however, Chris longs to educate himself, pursue a career in teaching, and see the world beyond Reading.

More so than Jason, Chris consciously recognizes the damaging effects of capitalism, including both the ways it shapes the factory and his own well-being. Chris reflects that he feels trapped in a dangerous cycle of consumption. A victim of this cycle, Chris is constantly working for new material goods at the expense of mental and emotional fulfillment: “Money got a way of running outcha pocket. Nobody tells you that no matter how hard you work there will never be enough money to rest” (29).

When Olstead’s workers go on strike, however, Chris begins to feel torn between his longing for outside opportunity and his loyalty to the cause. He is drawn to memories of his father’s impassioned activism with the union. He longs to live up to his father’s conviction in these memories. When Chris shares these memories with Brucie, however, Brucie urges him to prioritize his own future. Brucie explains that the battle they’re fighting—not only against Olstead’s management, but major shifts in the national economy—is a losing one.

Thus, even though Chris recognizes that Jason’s scapegoating of Oscar is wrong, he joins in the violence, consumed by a moment of inner-conflict and desperation.

Stan is the bartender at a local bar frequented by Olstead’s workers. Nottage describe him as “white American of German descent, fifties” (vii). He walks with a limp from an injury he received while working the floor during his years at Olstead’s, when he got his leg caught in a machine. Stan seems to have a longstanding attraction to Tracey, and he frequently flirts with her, though she seldom returns his affections.

Stan is friendly, thoughtful, and insightful. He has both a long history with Reading and a broad view of its inhabitants, as he sees many of them frequently, both in moments of joyful celebration and dark vulnerability. Stan wisely denounces the “nostalgia” that often feels blinding for families with long local legacies. Stan believes that nostalgia keeps many of Reading’s residents from developing a complex view of the world around them.

Over the course of the 2000 sections in Sweat, Stan seems to undergo a transition in his political views. At the beginning of the play, he expresses his view that following the news—and maintaining a certain awareness of politics—is very important. Near the end of the play, however, he seems to adopt a more cynical view. He proclaims:

I watch these politicians talking bullshit and I get no sense that they even know what’s going on beyond the windshield of their cars as they speed past. But, I decided a month ago that I’m not voting, cuz no matter what lever I pull it will lead to disappointment (79).

Stan is also notably the only character who shares a warm connection with (and concern for) Oscar in the 2000 sections of the play. He asks about Oscar’s wellbeing, and tries to warn him about stirring workers’ animosity amidst the Olstead strike. The play also insinuates that Stan has been instrumental in hiring Oscar and keeping him on staff as a busboy. By the end of the play—after Stan receives a traumatic brain injury trying to protect Oscar—the two characters experience a role reversal. Oscar becomes the bar manager who takes care of Stan. 

Oscar is “Colombian-American, twenty-two/thirty” (vii). He works as a busboy for Stan. Though Stan and Oscar have a friendly relationship, the play suggests that their boss pays Oscar an exploitatively low wage, and possibly employs Oscar off the books.

Like Chris, Oscar yearns for better opportunities, after watching his father strive for a good life in America. For Oscar, however, opportunity is not aligned with the specter of an existence outside of Reading. In Oscar’s mind, Olstead’s mill is the embodiment of American opportunity. Ironically, by the end of the play, Oscar ultimately finds his opportunity in the very bar that exploited his labor.

Tracey is Jason’s mother. Nottage describes her as “white American of German descent, forty-five/fifty-three” (vii). She has been working on the floor of Olstead’s for over 25 years. She also feels a deep bond with both the factory and the city of Reading. Her grandfather—a German craftsman and wood carver—worked on many of the buildings in the city. Thus, Tracey connects the landscape of Reading with her family’s history. Tracey has a fiery personality, and often shows her commitment to fight for what she believes is right.

Like Jason, Tracey dislikes school and formal education, and she is suspicious of aspirational goals. She feels betrayed when her friend, Cynthia, receives a promotion at the factory. Fearful of the ways Reading and the factory are changing—and embittered about being left behind—Tracey begins to blame Cynthia for the callous changes made by Olstead’s management. Likewise, Tracey projects her anger onto Oscar when he becomes a “scab” worker during the strike, and urges her son to enact violence upon him. She sees Oscar as someone who is effectively taking “her” place.

In the 2008 sections of the play, Tracey has a pill addiction. She struggles deeply with her sense of purposelessness after losing her job at Olstead’s.

Cynthia is Chris’s mother and Brucie’s estranged wife. Brucie has stolen money and belongings from her out of financial desperation.

Nottage describes Cynthia as “African-American, forty-five/fifty-three” (vii). She has been working at Olstead’s for 24 years (just slightly less than Tracey). At the beginning of the play, Cynthia is Tracey’s closest friend. After she receives a promotion to management level, however, Cynthia and Tracey begin to grow apart.

Cynthia is strong-willed and committed, but deeply hurt when her friends begin to turn away from her. She finds herself in an impossible in-between position, whereby she cannot convince Olstead’s management to act in her friends’ interests, and her friends feel betrayed by her because she is no longer “one of them.” Cynthia’s character embodies the ways in which capitalism often pits working-class Americans against one another.

Jessie is “Italian-American, forties” (vii). She works on the floor with Tracey and Cynthia and is close friends with both of them. Throughout the play, she struggles with alcohol abuse. In the opening scene, she drinks so much she becomes sick.

Jessie is the most enigmatic of the three women. In conversation with Stan, she reveals that she used to be a very adventurous person, and that she almost traveled the world with a past boyfriend. She often wonders “about that Jessie on the other side of the world and what she woulda seen” (57).