Lynn Nottage's award-winning Intimate Apparel, the current offering at the Jewish Community Center's Center Stage, is usually a quiet play --- although it also has scenes that blaze with confrontation, conviction, and private truths uttered for the first time. Those private truths are the "intimate apparel" of the play's title.

Nottage's decision to set the play in 1905 is intriguing. Many of the social changes of the 1920s actually began before World War I: the growth of our cities, especially New York; the accelerated Northern migrations of blacks from the South and immigrants from Central Europe; and the emergence of women from Victorian restraints. By 1905, Jim Crow was firmly established throughout the country. The first defining sound of a century that would shatter assumptions and beliefs was a fragmented black music called ragtime. Director Kevin Indovino shrewdly chooses songs from the genre for the play's musical setting.

The play is a nuanced, multi-layered work set in a time of flux. Its characters confront great social issues as well as their own private fears as it interweaves race, religion, and class in a story defined by love, sex, and the strictures of convention. Such a work requires the deftest handling.

And that brings us to the courage and, alas, the limitations of a community theater that takes on such a difficult, but potentially rewarding, play. Despite compelling moments, the production in the end is a worthy failure.

Nottage tells the story of an illiterate but gifted black seamstress named Esther, aged 35, and what used to be called a "maiden lady." Having come north 17 years ago, she makes a living by sewing elegant undergarments for white ladies on Fifth Avenue and tough black whores in the Tenderloin. She also saves every penny to finance her dream of opening a beauty shop for upscale "colored ladies." Along the way, she gets unbidden advice from the owner of her boarding house, Mrs. Dickson, who offers gruff affection and a no-nonsense guide to the necessity of marriage.

Soon Esther begins a correspondence with a Panamanian laborer, George Armstrong, that eventually blossoms into marriage. In the second act, we see the results of that disastrous decision as Esther's relationship with everyone changes, and she finds her dreams of love and financial independence at risk. She is a "Christian woman," who unwillingly tests the limits of convention. When she self-consciously dons a bright red bustier to entice her husband, we see how desperate she's become.

Complicating Esther's life are the enticing falsehoods she and George put in their letters, and the conflicting advice about love and marriage she gets from everyone she confides in. In 1905, the goal of marriage was essential for any respectable woman. But there are no happy marriages in this play.

Further complicating Esther's life is the deepening affection between her and an Orthodox Jew who sells her fabric. This is where Esther's happiness lies, though it was an impossible relationship in its time. Colista Turner and Mark D'Annunzio handle Esther and Mr. Marks' feelings with a convincing mix of affection and awkwardness despite the actors' occasional tentativeness.

Linda Starkweather's four-level set is pleasingly spacious and open, and director Indovino moves the play seamlessly from room to room (The writer knows Indovino casually; both work for WXXI.) Each of the five areas is a bedroom --- Esther's, George's, the white Mrs. Van Buren's, and the prostitute Mayme's --- except for Mr. Marks', whose shop provides the cloth for the intimate apparel. The bedroom is where the characters wear the intimate apparel and speak intimate truths.

Such a quiet play requires from its cast a barely perceived but essential momentum, or else it languishes in its own gentleness. The confrontations between Esther and, at various times, Mrs. Van Buren, Mayme, Mrs. Dickson, and George have some sizzle, but the performance flounders during the more reflective scenes. The play slows and loses its focus.

Every character in the play struggles for love and fails to find it. Turner's performance as Esther emphasizes her innocence and inner sweetness, but is less sure with her confusion. Arthur Brown as George is impressively vigorous yet troubled by finding himself in a large city where the sun never shines. Talli Tisher as Mrs. Van Buren and Tina Cannaday Chapman as Mayme are energetic but overwrought. Mark D'Annunzio is pleasantly gentle and sweet as Mr. Marks.

Worthy failures are certainly worth seeing. They attest to the ambitions and aspirations of theater companies, and give audiences much more to chew on than just another evening of fluff. Case in point: the Center Stage production of Intimate Apparel.

Intimate Apparel | through March 24 | Jewish Community Center Center Stage, 1200 Edgewood Avenue | $15-$22 | 461-2000, x. 235