RADIUM POISONING PHOTOS TRIAL
RADIUM POISONING PHOTOS WINDOWS

The effects of their radium poisoning will not wait for the courts. Many of the women do not have years, or even months, to wait for judicial change.

RADIUM POISONING PHOTOS TRIAL

Especially as the trial begins, time is of the essence. As more time passes, the former employees grow more and more sick. Yet it also symbolizes the passing of time, and how many of the women running out of it. This is a direct reference to the product being created in the girlsвЂ™ factory: watches.

The clothing re-emphasizes the traditional gender roles men and women are perpetually separated by.Д«etween the many scene changes or during moments of silence, a rapid, repeating ticking noise plays, a central theme in sound designer August Sylvester вЂ™20вЂ™s soundscape. Outside of luminescent aprons, the actors are clad in standard 1920s garb: modest, colorful dresses for the women and dark, dapper suits for the men.

These glowing costumes were best displayed during GraceвЂ™s dream, where she is haunted by Marie Curie and her past co-workers, who shine ominously. While it is impossible to deny its beauty, it is a double-edged sword, for it is a reminder of how much radium the women were consuming, and ultimately being killed by. Costume designer Patty Pawliczak, with assistants Bridget Kerr вЂ™20 and Camila Tardif вЂ™22, created glow-in-the-dark clothing that depicts how the women used to glow at the end of their shift. The stage was not the only thing glowing green. Blue and green projections display the substanceвЂ™s radioactivity and dire effects, particularly in a stunning and horrific fever dream sequence towards the end of the play. Lighting is also a tool used to show the novelty, and now-obvious hazards, of radium.

RADIUM POISONING PHOTOS WINDOWS

Lighting designer Jared Klein uses these vast windows to illuminate the space, showing the passing of time by the shifting light across the stage floor. We are transported to a workspace in New Jersey, surrounded by wooden paneling and tall windows. Scenic designer Garrett Wilson transforms the main stage theater into an expansive factory space. The world that Marzalek-Kelly creates with Radium Girls is spectacular, immense, and quite literally, glowing. Yet, as the story of Radium Girls reveals, women still held subordinate roles in society and were easily taken advantage of by employers. Especially with the passing of the 19th amendment in 1919, women were interacting with American society in new and radical ways. McNeilвЂ™s research centers on the changing dynamics of women in the workplace, since at вЂњthe end of World War I, women made up 20% of the manufacturing workforce in the U.S.вЂќ for the first time ever. Radium, discovered in 1898 by Marie Curie and colleagues, is the catalyst for the playвЂ™s circumstances. Set in the 1920s, dramaturg Coco McNeil вЂ™21 provides context to root the show, which is inspired by true events. She is faced with the choice of a quiet, peaceful death or fighting her former employer for justice and hopefully, saving the lives of future women. Grace does not escape this, and she too begins to suffer as a result of her job. Yet quite suddenly, many of the women begin to fall ill with mysterious illnesses. The women are instructed by their bosses to use their lips to point the tip of their brushes. The magical substance glows in the dark and many of the employees paint their face and teeth with it so they too can glow in the dark. Her and her colleagues paint hundreds of watch faces a day with newly invented,В mystical radium paint. Having to leave school at fifteen to support her family, she finds substantial employment at the United States Radium CorporationвЂ™s factory. The story follows Grace, portrayed by Lily Kops вЂ22, who by all means is an ordinary member of the American working class. It forces us to remember these women and the battles they fought for the sake of the next generation of laborers. Gregory and directed by Rebecca Marzalek-Kelly, Radium Girls centers on the forgotten moments of history that bear great significance. These are the moments that we only realize are historical once they are complete. Radium Girls, Skidmore CollegeвЂ™s spring Mainstage production, references many of these events, but focuses more closely on the women whose hardships led to safer and healthier working conditions. When we think of notable historical events, what usually comes to mind? Perhaps itвЂ™s the significant wars that your country has faced in the past hundred years, or the institution of new laws granting marginalized communities more rights and freedoms.

Radium poisoning photos