Inspiration
I became interested in directing Radium Girls when I first read the play and it brought to mind issues on the ethics of innovation and industrialization, specifically in relation to young entrepreneurs. As Bucknell University was in the process of expanding the School of Management to the College of Management, I was interested in creating a piece that would speak to the CEOs of tomorrow, that would urge them to grow and expand their sense of empathy in regards to the people they would lead and be responsible for. I was interested in connecting with the School of Management to collaborate so that their students could see and consider this play, in relation to their own stories and also to offer that theatre was a medium that could speak to who they were and who they were becoming.
Concept
From the beginning I was interested in looking at this play from all angles, that is to say, all points of view. I read These Shining Lives along-side Radium Girls and decided on Radium Girls because this script did not necessarily villainize the corporate characters. Rather, the play offered to show all human sides of the story. This, I felt, was vital in engaging our audience whom in large part would identify with these corporate leaders. However, the story did not let those characters ‘off the hook’ per say, it showed every problem and every mistake in great detail, offering accountability albeit tragically and poignantly. The pursuit of sharing all sides and all points of view idea led to the notion of staging in-the-round, the natural path to illustrating a variety of viewpoints through staging. In-the-round staging offered a unique entry point to the production based on each individual audience members place in the seating arrangement, which encircled the playing space in a square like configuration with voms. The idea became the centerpiece of the production and the staging ultimately supported the overall intention of the production in exciting ways. In addition, I was very interested in working with the actors to create vividly rendered characters. Using the virtuosity of our actors to demonstrate how the production itself was not attempting to preach, but rather to show one moment in time from many angles became an integral goal. To support this, I had actors play multiple characters. Sometimes actors played grieving mothers and in the next scene a desensitized male corporate executive. Both characters had to be played with sincerity without judgement or performative commentary from the actors. In this way our acting challenges were many, an ensemble in which actors would play many characters (different genders, different classes, different ages) each working with non-traditional staging as well as the portrayal of the effects of radium on the body as the actors playing the factory girls had to show a gradual but incredible physical decay throughout the course of the production. I spent a lot of time researching a variety of techniques on how to approach these challenges but ultimately decided on using the Michael Chekhov technique for all of them. Creating a rehearsal plan that utilized the Michael Chekhov technique and focusing on the exercises that could be modified to suit a non-traditional staging production became the goal.
Conceit
The choice to work in an arena (in-the-round) configuration impacted all aspects of the design. It required us to think about lighting differently as well as costumes and what the intimacy of the space would require. It allowed us to entertain ideas on how to include the audience creatively into the story as we gazed at them across the space watching the story unfold. In addition, the design team and I were very excited to explore the illuminating substance of Radium. How it was revealed in the props, how it infected the costumes and makeup, how the lighting could even reveal a gradual poisoning of both the players onstage as well as the audience as a whole. Some of the ways in which we found creative solutions included: experimenting with a variety of consumable drinks that naturally had a phosphorescence to them under black light, experimenting with a variety of stage paints that lit up either in black light or in the dark when ‘charged’ by stage lights over the course of a scene, makeup that could illuminate teeth when applied but also needed to stick over the course of a scene, clothing dye that seemed to illuminate with a green tinge under the lights during a scene when a particular lighting cue faded up slowly. All of the experimentation led to brilliant moments onstage. We discovered that lighting from under the deck (stage) that seeped out in cracks provided more opportunity for action design, design that supported the arc of the story through a kind of gradual growth. We utilized these glowing green lights under the deck that glowed through cracks specifically in relation to the endings of scenes, which through our scene analysis revealed a kind of cliffhanger like feel which allowed for tableus in the dark and specific illumination in relation to where the players were onstage. These moments of eerie glow capped each scene nicely and the levels grew as the story revealed more and more poisoning throughout the play. Sound cues which played music of the period but altered to feel more eerie supported these moments. In addition we were also able to engage the audience in playful ways including slowly turning the whole of the audience green throughout the intermission, or offering the audience small samples of the “Radium-infused” health tonic, popular in the period. Although only a mixture that included the drink Red Bull which naturally glows under black light, the effect of offering the poison to the audience was palpable; audience members were both excited and afraid.
Reflections
Radium Girls was successful on many different fronts. In terms of pedagogy, it taught students the skills of in-the-round performance utilizing Chekhov acting technique. Actors also learned how to portray age, illness and the humanity of every character. In terms of scholarship, the collaboration with my designers was profoundly affecting, creating gorgeously eerie lighting, sound and stage effects that were deeply satisfying to witness. ‘Experimenting’ with the design team every step of the way was a joy as we all took part in the wonder of creating stage magic on an off-Broadway budget. Yet what I feel to be the highest success of this project was due to the fact that, in collaboration with the school of management, it was a requirement for the management 100 course. This class, filled with beginning management students, some of whom had never even seen a theatre play before, filled every house of every performance. The show was sold out a month out. Obviously we were all terrified, requiring a performance meant an audience that might start resistant to the experience and refuse to allow themselves to fully receive the story. We worried about suspension of disbelief. We worried about texting, talking or sleeping audience members, unaware of appropriate behavior and expectations in a theatre setting. We worried that they wouldn’t care. Ultimately, however, we decided that the message of the play, my spine that Conscience is often blinded by the dazzling potential of innovation was too important for us to ignore especially when we had the ear of the potential future leaders of corporate America. Thankfully we were rewarded for our brave effort. The audience was deeply involved. Although we did have a few tired audience members and one or two disconnects, the majority of our audience was extremely receptive and excited to see concerns they harbored onstage in front of them portrayed by talented actors and without judgement. What a joy it was to see these students whom I had never met in other circumstances, applaud standing at the end, return more than once to see the show from another angle, or tell their upper class friends and mentors to come see the show, which they did as we squeezed them in with house seats night to night. A group of senior management students even approached me after one performance, wanting to talk about the characters, the issues, what could have been done differently. It was so much more than we could have hoped for.