Regional – Milwaukee/River Hills, WI: Acacia Theater at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church.
March 6-March 22, 2026.
Drama.
Author: Melanie Marnich adapting Kate Moore’s book, “Radium Girls.”
Director: Janet Bouman Peterson.
90 min.
Critic: Anne Siegel (March 2026).
***
The dictum, “truth is stranger than fiction” certainly applies to the play, These Shining Lives. A production by Milwaukee’s Acacia Theatre Company is based on the true story of women who were employed by a watch company in the 1920s-30s. After a number of years, many women mysteriously complained of a variety of health ailments that eventually were connected to radium poisoning.
Readers may well be more familiar with the 2018 film, “Radium Girls” than this play from 2018 that was “put on ice” until the end of the 2020 pandemic. Both the film and the play are based on the book, “Radium Girls,” by Kate Moore.
The play is set in Ottawa, IL and Chicago in the 1920s and 30s. As the feared Depression tightened its grip on America, jobs became scarce and even high-income families soon faced a level of poverty they had never known.
However, one business in Ottawa, the Radium Dial Company, was doing well. At its peak, it employed 1,000 women to paint glow-in-the-dark dials on watches. The watches became immensely popular, and sales were brisk. The “girls” (many of them were very young women) were paid on a per-piece basis. The work was consistent, and the pay was above what most relatively uneducated women could earn at that time.
Acacia’s small, intimate theater is an ideal arrangement for staging These Shining Lives. The play’s title applies to the women workers themselves, who literally “glowed” at night with radium dust. The radioactive dust was everywhere – in their hair, on their skin, and even on their clothing.
Evidence of this is offered by costumes director Marie Wilke. Catherine is the play’s main character, and by the end of her career at the watch factory, her dress literally glows under blacklight fixtures. It is an eerie and anxiety-producing effect that definitely enhances one’s theatergoing experience.
Radium was first discovered in the 1920s. Its properties were touted as a medical cure for all sorts of medical conditions. (Acacia favorite Mark Neufang performs about a half-dozen roles in this play, including a man who hawks the various benefits of radium.)
When Catherine (beautifully performed by Bekah Rose) first learns of her “luck” in getting a job at the factory, she cannot wait to tell her husband Tom, a steelworker. (Actor Zion Nelson, as Tom, makes an impressive Acacia debut.)
As was typical in those times, Tom is ambivalent about his wife taking a job. She promises that “it will only be for a little while.” However, Catherine soon forms close relationships with her co-workers: the flustered Frances (Maura Cook), sassy Charlotte (Shannon Nettesheim Klein) and timid Pearl (Olivia Najera). They enjoy a newfound sense of purpose to their lives, and for once have a bit of cash to entertain themselves beyond the home.
Catherine’s “temporary job” lasts nine years before she is fired by her male boss (for taking “too many sick days,” according to him).
In truth, the factory’s leaders were worried that other workers would be disturbed by seeing Catherine’s pronounced limp. It was evident that Catherine was getting sicker every week.
One of the play’s best scenes focuses on Catherine’s interaction with a factory doctor (Mark Newfang). He barely listens to her health complaints, and tells her dismissively to take some aspirin.
Soon, Catherine’s coworkers start talking about their own strange illnesses. Finally, Catherine sees a doctor in Chicago, and the truth comes out. He states that her that her health will continue to fail as a result of radiation poisoning.
Catherine and some of her coworkers eventually sue the company. Unfortunately, this 90-minute play (no intermission) spends little time on the details of this case, which eventually led to major changes in US labor laws.
During this time, the women factory workers suffered scorn from neighbors, their church and the press. Former friends stopped talking to them. How could they believe that a company considered to be such as asset to the community be vilified by these sick workers?
What started out as a welcome paycheck for working-class families eventually led to the deaths of dozens of women, both in Ottowa and at a similar company in New Jersey. Throughout both cases, company officials claimed they had no idea of the dangers of radiation. It is shocking to realize that one of these companies was still operating as late as the 1970s.
Acacia Theatre Company is to be commended for bringing this vivid historical chapter to life. The play focuses on families that suffered the effects that company policy had on its workers. It wouldn’t be the last time a company valued profit more than the health of its workers, but These Shining Lives offers a cautionary tale of what happens in such instances.
As in past seasons, tickets for Acacia’s plays are offered on a pay-what-you-can basis.
Bekah Rose Photo: Melinda Rhodebeck
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