Nickel & Dimed

Can a middle-aged, middle-class woman survive, when she suddenly has to make beds all day in a hotel and live on $7 an hour? Maybe. But one $7-an-hour job won’t pay the rent: she’ll have to do back-to-back shifts, as a chambermaid and a waitress. Joan Holden’s stage adaptation is a focused comic epic shadowed with tragedy. The worst, she learns, is not what happens to the back or the knees: it’s the damage to the heart. The bright glimpses of co-workers that enliven the book become indelible portraits. These characters wage their life struggles with a gallantry that humbles Barbara, and the audience.