A STITCH IN TIME: Rosalyn Coleman (left) plays Esther, a seamstress who specializes in undergarments in turn-of-the-century Manhattan. : Mark Garvin

The corset makes a dandy metaphor in Lynn Nottage's lyrical and lovely Intimate Apparel. By current standards, the play is old-fashioned; also perhaps it owes something to Doctorow's Ragtime and James' Washington Square. But Nottage's language and character development are all her own, and they shine with bittersweet charm and nuance.

Apparel, set in Manhattan in 1905, is the story of Esther Mills, a colored (as she would have been called then) seamstress, specializing in exquisite undergarments. The precision of her work—and her discretion—make Esther sought after by everyone from a white society matron (Mrs. Van Buren) to a black prostitute (Mayme).

So Esther is kept busy, but she has dreams beyond her work. Having diligently saved a small fortune, she hopes to open a beauty parlor where colored women would be fussed over and treated with dignity. More than that, Esther—35 years old and plain—wishes for a husband to share her life.

One dream, at least, might come true. With the help of the society matron, Esther writes letters to a black worker in Panama. She is unable to read and write, but her letters, where images of soft underclothes stand in for more personal information, win the man's heart. But he and Esther know nearly nothing about each other.

The first act of Apparel keeps our hearts racing with hope. We love the decent, shy Esther, who distrusts her own abilities, but manages deep relationships with a rich white woman, an experienced hooker and a darling Jewish cloth salesman. (My one reservation has to do with the latter: This sense of black woman and Jewish man united in their sense of outsiderness smacks of simplistic wish fulfillment.)

As for the second act—it's inevitable and the oldest story in the world, yet Nottage makes it poignant and even cautiously optimistic.

I wish I liked Tim Vasen's direction as much as I like the play. The staging is curiously awkward, simultaneously busy and flat. The actors are encouraged to orate: They overemphasize much of the text and deliver lines too slowly. I assume the intent is to suggest period style, but it feels forced and the very antithesis of intimacy. Still, it doesn't weigh things down for too long, and when the good cast (especially Rosalyn Coleman as Esther) break free and speak more naturally, the show takes flight. Costumes are the crucial design element here: Janus Stefanowicz has created some spectacular and period-appropriate clothes, but her underthings are not as fastidiously fitted as we know Esther's would be.

INTIMATE APPAREL, Through April 16, Philadelphia Theatre Company at Plays & Players Theater, 1714 Delancey St., 215-985-0420, www.phillytheatreco.com