We sat five rows from the front of the compact Hayes Theater Friday night. It was the perfect vantage point to see the entertaining, but relatively unheralded play we had come for. I only knew it was written by the Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright, whose Intimate Apparel I had seen four summers ago.

The battle for the souls of human beings takes place in the kitchen of a sandwich shop at a truck stop. Only Lynn Nottage could imagine such an earthbound scenario for salvation. Four ex-cons are condemned to work  for Clyde in a sandwich shop by their last-chance mentality. They have no one else who will give them employment, so they suffer the abuse of a curvy, heavy-set, African American woman.

Clyde wants the usual truck stop fare dished out in rapid-fire orders, tuna fish, ham-and-cheese, turkey, but her employees dream of exotic sandwiches with organic spices inspired by their mentor Montrelous, played by William from “This is Us,” Ron Cephas Jones. Rafael (Rez Salazar) is a mercurial Latino, who has vivid dreams of sandwiches with wonderful spices (many unknown me) that come from exotic lands. His recipes come out almost as a challenge.

Letitia (Kara Young), is a single African American mother with a desperate on-again, off-again relationship with her ex, and visions of sandwiches she could make with organic spices on whole-grain bread.  Each time the characters expound their visionary sandwiches, the lights go low and time seems suspended in honor of their creative geniuses.

Jason is a tattooed white late-comer to the kitchen, who takes no pride in his work and just wants to stay out of trouble long enough to get a better  job.  His residual inmate anger is closer to the surface, and he finds the sandwich recipe ritual silly. He slops the mayo and mustard on his sandwiches indiscriminately.

Clyde haunts the kitchen as a bullying manager, who reminds each employee they are one whimsical move from the street. She is large, dressed in skin-tight apparel that emphasize her majestic curves, with a voice that could dress down a drill sergeant. She also has the drill sergeant’s tendency to demean and discourage her subordinates. The atmosphere of the kitchen effectively reproduces the prison these employees have known too well.

At the other extreme Montrelous offers encouragement and hope for his fellow employees, as they invent their recipes. He wears a Nehru suit with a fez-like hat, all in subdued colors, a dramatic contrast with Clyde. When it comes time for him to confess his crime to the others, it appears to be no crime at all.

The entire story emerges from the kitchen that alternates as heaven and hell with lighting and sound to produce the atmosphere.  The souls of each of the three younger characters seem to hang in the balance.  Without giving away too much, the dramatic lighting and sound effects become the focus of the action as the story drifts to a denouement.  The kitchen becomes the setting for ultimate spiritual drama.

At the very least you can leave with some very exotic sandwich recipes, but that was  hardly the attraction for me.