A hundred years after the real-life Radium Girls suffered from chemical poisoning and fought for compensation in the courts, Cherry Hill West is staging a play about them this week.
“Radium Girls” follows three young women, Grace, Irene and Kathryn, who work at United States Radium Corporation in Orange.
The women produced watch dials designed with radium-based paint, and after some of the company’s employees became deathly ill and experienced disfigurement, they searched for the truth about why. The three quickly learned the reason was consistent exposure to radium, believed at the time to be harmless.
With that knowledge, the employees sue United States Radium for compensation and fight to shed light on the harmful effects of radium. The play follows that legal battle, telling the women’s story and explaining how the radium company tried to hide what the women found.
Director Kate McWilliams explained that she and her co-advisor, Carolyn Messias, had been thinking of doing the show for a few years, not only because it would shed more light on the story but also because it would give West students the opportunity to do serious acting.
“I think it’s something that this whole situation is just really not spoken about,” said McWilliams. “You have these young girls – they’re in their late teens, early 20s – and they’re dying horrible deaths, like their jaws are literally coming out of their mouths. And … no one heard of it.”
The play has particular resonance during Women’s History Month, according to one student.
“There’s so much women’s history that we don’t talk about that’s very important, because these girls really did a lot for the women in their field of work,” said Samantha Neuwirth, a sophomore who plays Kathryn.
“They fought this company, because they knew something was wrong and they needed justice for it.”
Unlike the school’s previous production of “Cinderella,” the “Radium Girls” set is minimalistic and relies heavily on furniture and background colors to set the tone. Assistant director and senior Christopher Reigel explained that it is an intentional choice prescribed by the script.
“The idea of the set is that we have tables and chairs that are going to move around and create an illusion of different locations without really showing it,” he explained. “There’s no backdrops or scenery …
“It’s really a show where we’re trying to let the dialogue and the acting speak for itself.”
Despite taking place almost a century ago, the story remains relevant, and could be of particular interest to people who love health, science or history.
“(My biggest take away was) definitely that you should speak out when there’s something that is seriously wrong,” said Emily Davidson, a freshman who plays Grace. “Because even if it might seem like you have no chance of winning, you never know what people will think and how it will turn out.
“So you should try and fight for what you believe is right.”
‘Radium Girls” will be performed on March 18 and 19 at 7 p.m. and on March 20 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 for general admission and are available online at showtix4u.com/event-details/62110 and at the door one hour before show time.
