Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Brock's department of dramatic arts is tackling a tale of how the selfish pursuit of short-term profit left behind a trail of misery and betrayal.
Radium Girls, by American playwright D.W. Gregory, tells the true story of the women who worked in a New Jersey factory applying luminous paint to watches, clocks and military dials. The paint contained the radioactive element radium, which the workers were told was safe. Believing what they were told, the women happily went about their work, even going so far as to put the paintbrushes in their mouths in order to create a finer point.
Philip McKee, who was hired by the department to direct the student production, explained the workers eventually got sick and neither they, nor indeed the corporation at first, understood why.
The factory owners eventually discovered the cause, but, as is so often the case, the business case for continuing the use the substance exceeded the moral case for ensuring the safety of their employees.
"Their concern is that they'll lose their business if it's discovered that radium is in effect a toxic element," he said. "The whole play is about the women finding this out and their quest for justice."
While the play, which first premièred in 2000, tells a story dating back to 1918-1928, it's not hard to see how the issues apply the present, as workers, particularly those in the global south, continue to be exposed to harmful substances to make the products deemed necessary for modern life.
"There have been laws passed, let's say in our country, that prohibit the use of certain dangerous materials and products used in manufacturing," McKee said. "Often what happens then is products are just used in other countries where those laws are not yet passed.
"In our own country, there are substances that we're exposed to which are currently approved for use but which we'll probably discover over time that are in fact very toxic and harmful and might eventually be prohibited but in the meantime we're getting sick."
Radium Girls runs March 3, 4, 10, 11 at 7:30 p.m.; March 5 at 2 p.m.; and March 10 at 11:30 a.m.; and will be held in the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, 15 Artists’ Common.
Tickets are $18 Adults; $15 Students/Seniors; $10 Groups; $5 eyeGO high school program, and are available through the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre Box Office on 905-688-0722, or online, or via email boxoffice@firstontariopac.ca.
By Mike Zettlel for www.niagarathisweek.com.
Photo: Adrian Marchesano and Sydney Francolini in Radium Girls. ©2017 Mike Zettel.
2017-03-01
St. Catharines: Brock students present "Radium Girls" March 3-10 about women in a toxic workplace