This past weekend, Stevens Dramatic Society presented Radium Girls, the true story of factory workers in Orange, New Jersey, who worked with radium paint and developed radium poisoning. After years of requesting compensation and being dismissed by their employers, the Radium Girls sued and gained national attention. Their lawsuit was a major landmark in the labor rights movement, giving precedent for worker’s compensation, and safety standards across industries increased following the lawsuit and settlement.
Grace Fryer, played by second-year Computer Science student Taylor Terry, filed the lawsuit against the United States Radium Corporation and was joined by four other dial painters. Terry emphasizes the relevance and importance of this story, saying, “The silencing of women and their pain is unfortunately still a prevalent issue today and this show truly brings it to light. There are also still so many stories that are occurring today in which corporations or the government know of issues in the environment that are harming citizens and they choose to try to keep things quiet and endanger the lives of people for their own good and image.” In the case of the Radium Girls, dial painters were instructed to keep the paint brushes pointed by using their lips or tongues. They ingested “between a few hundred to a few thousand microcuries of radium, per year,” thousands of times the safe exposure to radium, which is less than 1/10 of a microcurie. The harmful effects of radium were kept from the all-female workforce, and as Terry’s character describes, they were not expected to ask questions.
Luke Magette, fourth year Mechanical Engineering major, played U.S. Radium Corp President Arthur Roeder. Roeder denied responsibility for the girls’ poisoning for years, as the girls’ condition worsened, not believing that radium could be a dangerous substance. This was not an unpopular opinion in the medical community, as few wanted to speak out against or stall the rapid advancements that had come from its discovery. “If radium has unknown dangers, it might seriously injure the therapeutic use of radium,” wrote the chief medical examiner of New York to the Radium Girls’ lawyer. Magette describes the complexity of portraying a real person in a position of power trying to justify his actions. “He was trying to do a good thing and got his hands tied,” he comments. Roeder had stepped down from the role of president before the settlement, at which point the new president, Clarence Lee, stated: “We unfortunately gave work to a great many people who were physically unfit to procure employment in other lines of industry. Cripples and persons similarly incapacitated were engaged. What was then considered an act of kindness on our part has since been turned against us.” Magette described the impact of the corporation’s neglect of its workers: “Listening to how these women were screwed over and forgotten about… the people in power just got to walk away and these girl’s lives were affected every day.” Though each girl sued for $250,000, they each received $10,000, their medical and legal bills covered, and $600 annually. Three of the plaintiffs died less than five years after the settlement, and the last plaintiff died 18 years after the settlement, at the age of 51.
Radium Girls is a stark departure from the comedies performed last year by SDS, Play On! and The Prom. There were many unique technical elements to the show, with UV paint and blue-green lighting to color the entire production with a radioactive glow, though “the heart of the story is the script.” Magette hopes to see more dramas from the student group, saying, “Telling dramatic stories is what makes me love theater.”
According to SDS president Carly Teitelbaum, on Wednesday, November 8 the organization secured the rights for The Addams Family, which will be the spring musical! Audition dates have not been set yet, but they will likely occur at the beginning of next semester. The performances will be on April 4th at 9pm, April 5th at 8pm, and April 6th at 2pm and 8pm.
