March 14, 2025
Reviewed by Chris Cassone ccassone@chriscassone.com
When you know the basic plot going in to see a play such as this, one can have difficulty with the joyful opening scenes. You know these characters are doomed so how can you identify with their happiness? We are quickly inserted into the Donohue household; the perfect nuclear family whose mom and dad are Catherine and Tom. Catherine speaks in poetic verse. Like in her love for her husband, "When he touched me, I knew that I could fly." This is no ordinary watch painter. And she speaks to us almost as an angel looking backwards in time.
And that is what this heartbreaking story is about. Time. We are constantly reminded of a set of giant, moving watch faces with inner gear workings spread all around. And the ticking, the constant ticking. And the Big Ben bong that reminds us all: Tempus Fugit.
Catherine is a good soul, tries hard for her family and works even harder at her job at the Radium Dial Factory. It just as well could have been the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. We know what is happening and what is coming. But the four gals, hardworking flappers from the Roaring Twenties, work their hearts out for the company and Mr. Reed. They are proud when their numbers go up, that's the number of watches they paint in a day. And by paint, we mean the "lip, dip and paint method" with "lip" being the critical portion where they would lick their little paint brush to get a good point to the brush in order to paint the numbers and hands on the luminous watch. (I still have my Timex with radium paint. They say the only sure way to know is with a Geiger Counter. This is Radium 266 we are talking about.)
A lively out-going vivacious girl, Catherine finds the job of a lifetime for a female in the Twenty's which pays three times the norm. Here she meets three more "Radium Girls" who all enter blindly into work being told it is perfectly safe. The "radium cure" sizzled around the world after Marie Curie discovered the radioactive powder. The tonic cure actually did happen. A small dose of radium would boost red blood cell growth in the short term. Continue down that road and the results were irreversible.
Catherine and her gals were all truly liberated women in the late 1920's Young with smaller fingers, and all with a drive to win the daily paint count, they had no idea what was in store for them. Happy families, golden futures and that top-of-the-world feeling soon faded away as aches and pains gave way to terminal diagnoses.
The four radium girls, all played perfectly by Allison Schlicher as Pearl with the bad jokes, Shannon Woo as the demure and religious Frances, Jessica Woehler as the rambunctious Charlotte and Abigail Stewart as Catherine, the sweet conscience of the play. Her emotional reading of Marnich's poetic monologues was the highlight of the evening. The shock that they all showed upon doing their best and given a death sentence in return is the fulcrum upon which the play tilts.
Issac Jay's Tom, Catherine's steel working husband, never expected his wife to want a life of her own but these were the days of the suffragette and roles were loosening if not breaking the ties that bound them. John Colella's Mr. Reed, the Radium Dial misogynist boss, did it all with a smile, even with his "It's my job to fire you" speech, he sweettalked the audience just like he did to Catherine and her girlfriends.
Michael Kachingwe is the performance's utility infielder, does a wonderful job in five roles and we loved it when he appeared.
Grace Fryer is the Radium girl around whom Catherine is modeled. A crusader for women's rights, she never expected to be thrust into the battle. She, like our Catherine, received a paltry sum three weeks before she died.
But we never learn, do we? Love Canal, Deepwater Horizon, East Palestine. Search toxic spills - you will not believe the list. "These Shining Eyes" has emerged as the latest bellwether to remind us that we do not have to lose our best and brightest next time.
Well done, Actors Co-op! An excellent production, These Shining Lives plays Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 2:30 through March 30 in their Crossley Theatre, 1760 N. Gower, Hollywood. Ample free parking.
Tickets: https://www.actorsco-op.org/these-shining-lives
