The story of the "Radium Girls" of NewJersey has been told in books, poems, films and at least one other play; here,Marnich focuses on Chicago's Radium Dial Co., where young women, hired to paintluminous watch faces for unusually high wages, gradually succumb to thehorrific effects of radiation poisoning. You can see the story unfold as soonas they start licking the tips of their radium-tipped brusheswhich they do formany scenes before the frightening symptoms kick in.
Recently emancipated, bringing home good money, thewomen are having the time of their lives. We see the domestic tensionsunleashed by the role-reversal of a working wife; the first appearance ofdisturbing symptoms; the women's struggles with their own denial; the company'scraven attempts to hush them up; the scorn of their neighbors and the press;the lawsuits, followed by victory, and their eventual grisly deaths. As poetAdrienne Rich wrote (about Marie Curie, another casualty of the element shediscovered): "Her wounds came from the same source as her power."
Marnich tells the story neither for outrage norsensationalism, but for poetry. It's hard to imagine an actual working-classcouple speaking as lyrically as Tom and Katie do, and director Drew Brhel hascoached the actors to only slightly suggest period speech and manners. But theabsence of the trappings of a full staging only collapses the distance betweenthese characters and us; Marnich's words and the actors' skills hit home withdevastating force. Amber Page and Nicholas Harazin provide a deep emotionalcore as the young couple; Ruth Arnell brings personality to the perkiest of thefactory girls; Jonathan Gillard Daly does thankless duty playing a series ofempty suits.
The play attempts to bring us down gently, showingCatherine’s heroism in standing up for the truththe stakes could not be morevividly portrayed. Her courage shines brighter as her body weakens. Still, weleave the theater aching from the impact of this true tale, which only gainspower from the artifice of its telling.
