Last night I attended a play at the Plano High School Auditorium. My grandson had a role in the play "These Shining Lives" by Melanie Marnich. The story is about real people and real events in their lives. The Radium Dial company hired young women to paint, with radium, the faces used in watches. In order to get a fine point on their paint brush, they formed their brushes by running them through their lips. The radium exposure caused cancer and eventually death.
The play was moving, disturbing in its subject; but, these teens did a wonderful job of portraying the characters - with the excitement of being able to join the workforce in the 1920's, the melding of friendships with the other girls at the workshop, the fear and realization of their situation. The marriage between Catherine and Tom (my grandson) runs through a list of concerns, from Catherine's need to work or not, to his doubts of her pain, to his support and understanding through her need to take the company to court.
I grew up near Ottawa in the 40's and 50's and heard about this factory and the radium, but not the depth of danger and death that came with working there.
Congratulations to the theatre department for a wonderful production and a "well done" to my grandson on his very first play!
