Berkeley Leader

Berkeley County Middle College High School issued the following announcement on March 11.

Students in the Berkeley Center for the Arts (or BCA) theatre program at Goose Creek High have been hard at work for the past five weeks putting together a very intimate production that will hopefully have the audience walking away learning something new – particularly in regards to labor laws, workers’ rights and gender equality.

The timing of the production could not be better; March happens to be Women’s History Month, and “These Shining Lives” sheds light on obstacles women have overcome in the workplace.

The play tells the story of those who are often referred to as the Radium Girls, female factory workers who contracted radium poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint in the 1920s and 1930s. The term “radium girls” applies to the women who worked in three different areas in New Jersey, Illinois and Connecticut.

While company owners and scientists were familiar with the detrimental effects of radium, the women who worked for these factories were not made aware of the effects, and many became sick – and even died – from radium poisoning. Factory workers used a “lip, dip, paint” method while they worked: each of the painters mixed her own paint in a small bowl, and they were instructed to point the brushes using their lips or tongues to keep them sharp, then dip their brushes into the paint and brush the paint onto the dials.

“These Shining Lives” focuses on Radium Dial Company’s factory in Ottawa, Illinois, and is based on the true story of four women who worked there: “Catherine,” the main character and the story’s narrator, and her three friends, “Frances”, “Pearl” and “Charlotte”. The show dramatizes the danger women faced in the workplace while highlighting the wider lack of concern companies had for protecting the health of their employees. The story in “These Shining Lives” is stretched across nine years and during that time, the characters slowly suffer from radium sickness contracted at the factory.

BCA’s students work under the direction of theatre teacher Ashley Baker, who said she was drawn to the play because it can be tricky to find plays that are appropriate for high schoolers to do, but not too “childish”.

“This play, I think, is written in a very nice way,” she said. “It tells the story in a very poetic – and sometimes surreal – way, so it’s a challenge for our actors to do.”

To prepare for their roles, Baker said 12th-grader Chesney Graham, who serves as the production’s assistant director, did a bunch of research and compiled packets of information to give to the cast members, so they could learn about their characters and understand some of the medical jargon used in the script.

Theatre students have been working on the production for the past five weeks. Tenth-grader Bee Archer portrays Catherine in the play, and said the story shows how the four main women in the story get sicker and sicker from the poisoning.

Archer said one of the hardest parts about the show for her was seeing how different social norms were roughly 100 years ago.

“It’s so hard adjusting to that,” she said, alluding to Catherine’s struggles in the story. “When a man is like, ‘you can’t do this’, I want to yell at them – but I (Catherine) can’t, because I’m a woman.”

It is a smaller cast – four female leads and two male leads – but Archer described this as a benefit.

“It’s a very small cast, so you get to see the depth of the characters more,” she said.

Eleventh-grader Alexus Hopkins plays “Frances”, one of Catherine’s friends. There are a lot of things the students want audience members to take away from the experience, but a big one Hopkins pushed was the need to stand up for one’s self, especially when it comes to healthcare.

“Trust your body and trust what it’s telling you, and to not let other people keep telling you what you’re feeling is wrong – especially women,” she said.

Hopkins said one of her favorite things about the show is seeing the friendship blossom between the four women over the course of nine years.

“At the start, not that we dislike each other, we’re just not as close, and then near the end we are literally fighting for Catherine,” she said. “It’s really sad.”

Eleventh-grader Caroline Raus, lighting designer/technician, said the show ties into Women’s History Month in the sense that it highlights women who were not treated the way they should have been.

“They stand up for themselves, and that’s something women had to do,” she said.

Not only did the women contract all sorts of ailments from the radium, but there were instances of them visiting doctors and not truly being heard or taken seriously about their concerns and conditions. Tenth-grader Aniyah Gordon plays “Dr. Rowntree” and “Dr. Dalitsch” in the play; she described the former as more of a chemist, and the latter is the one who officially establishes that yes, the women are sick from radium poisoning, and no, there is no cure for it.

Gordon encouraged residents to check out the play, especially since it is Women’s History Month; Gordon pointed out that the events of the story took place fairly recently.

“All the plays we’ve done that I can think of since I’ve been here…they always have a more lighthearted element than the darker element that this show has, so you get to see something different in Goose Creek,” she said.

The play also follows along as the four main characters eventually file a lawsuit against Radium Dial. The stage setup is unique: audience members are on-stage with the actors in an alley-style setup – cast members said it somewhat reflects a courtroom.

Eleventh-grader Ryan Flynn plays “Tom,” Catherine’s husband. Flynn describes Tom as being in denial of Catherine’s claims about radium, but the relationship between the two characters is still strong.

“He’s a lovey-dovey guy,” Flynn said. “We talked about how we had to deal with societal pressures, and it’s talked about in the show.”

Flynn said while the concept of the production is dark, the message is still bright.

“It’s in remembrance – it’s hopeful,” he said, adding, “There’s parts about friendships and relationships, and loss and love.”

Eleventh-grader Jacob Bouchie, sound designer/technician, said the show also sheds a light on women becoming more independent, alluding to a scene between Catherine and Tom where Tom says he is supposed to be working and making more money than Catherine, though Catherine is the one who comes home later than Tom because she has to work late.

“It shows that women are starting to become a more prominent role in the workforce,” he said.

Baker said her students have worked really hard to bring the story to life on stage.

“When I watch them in rehearsal, it’s clear that BCA has some top-notch students,” she said.

Viewers can see “These Shining Lives” in Goose Creek High’s auditorium on March 18 and 19 at 7 p.m., and at 2 p.m. on March 20. Tickets are $10 (buy tickets), and seating is limited because of the alley-style setup on stage. The show is recommended for audience members ages 13 and up.

Original source can be found here.