Last chance

“Intimate Apparel”: Playwright Lynn Nottage has said that she set out to reclaim the stories of people like her great-grandmother Esther Mills, whose life she has been able to imagine only from photographs and the knowledge that this ancestor was a seamstress who created intimate apparel for women. Nottage’s play, which stars Viola Davis (a Tony Award-winner for August Wilson’s “King Hedley II” and a recognizable face from such screen projects as “Antwone Fisher”), is exquisitely rendered by director Daniel Sullivan. Davis’ portrayal will surely be counted among the year’s most gratifying performances.

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Ends Sunday at the Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. (213) 628-2772.