These Shining Lives

This play is an important historical play based on the account in a famous book about one of America's great industrial tragedies. In the early 1920's, propelled by a devastating need to work and supplement the family's meager income, hundreds of women took jobs in a company called Radium Dial in Chicago. Their job was a simple one and it paid well for the times - for 8 cents a watch, to coat the numbers and hands of their dials in a radium paint to make them glow in the dark. It was the custom for these painters to improve the flow of the radium paint by first moistening their brushes with their lips before applying the deadly radium. This one, tiny tragic flaw of these workers lead to devastating effects, and this play's core plot. Catherine (Autumn Sisson who stands out in her first dramatic role) is the central protagonist in an ensemble cast that is wonderfully directed by Linda Paulsen, a member of the TRP Board of Directors. As usual, TRP takes a bold stand by producing this socially conscious performance that asks the audience to reconsider what they take for granted about greedy corporations and the need for protections to ensure that profits do not usurp the need for compassionate decency  with their workers. This is a dramatic example of the power of the legitimate theater.

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