This year’s first performance from Ecole St. Mary High School’s Upstage Productions is a dramatic play torn from a real-life story.
Upstage Productions is presenting Radium Girls beginning on Wednesday. D. W. Gregory wrote the play, which follows Grace Fryer and a lawsuit in New Jersey. It was published by Dramatists Play Service in 2000.
St. Mary Grade 12 student Cobain Roos plays Mr. (Arthur) Roeder the owner of the U.S. Radium Corporation and Grade 11 student Mia Bisson plays Grace Fryer. Bisson said that the production of the play has been an amazing experience.
“It’s been going good,” she said. “It’s been steady, and it’s always constant feedback on positives and negatives for what we can do to do better. We’re always learning every rehearsal.”
Roos has also enjoyed the production and said was intrigued by the idea of playing a real person.
“It’s been a phenomenal experience,” he said. “Working on a play that is based off a true story, it’s just such a treat because you just get humbled by these real stories and these real people. Grace is a real character and I’m a real character and these things really happened, which is so interesting.”
“You can always do research and you always learn about who you’re playing since it’s a historical play,” Bisson added. “It is quite thrilling to put yourself in those shoes as if you were there at the time.”
Roos said the play comes from a true story about the tragedy around the lawsuit in New Jersey.
“It’s obviously about girls and radium, but it’s a true story. It’s about a company that painted watches so they would glow in the dark for soldiers,” Roos said.
“It shows the excitement around such a new thing like radium and then in the mid half of the play you start learning about the ill side effects of it and the story of these girls who painted the watches and actually consumed radium.”
Bisson portrays one of the girls who consumed radium. The aftermath of that exposure is central to the story.
“It’s a struggle for her because the radium affects many, many parts of the body,” Bisson explained. “It has even been implied that it had survived at least 15 years after the death of a girl.”
At one point a character is investigating why another character has fallen ill and this leads to the case involving Fry.
“The play is over the time period of, I think, 30-odd years,” Roos said. “My character at the beginning of the play is 30, and at the end is actually 60. It’s an interesting one, with the passage of time being such an integral part of the story.”
The characters look stays relatively static despite the passage of time.
“It’s definitely hard, because we are high school students doing a high school play, and you can’t bring in adults to play your counterparts,” Roos said.
The characters of Roeder and Gray are the only ones who play the same character throughout the play. The rest of the cast plays multiple roles.
“I’m impressed by all the other actors because it is it is very difficult to change who you are halfway through a play,” Bisson said. “Sometimes it will only be a matter of minutes where you go from maybe an old man to a young healthy boy and it’s a big jump.”
Roos enjoys playing the same character throughout the play.
“I personally enjoy it because I can just log into my character’s emotions and their feelings, and I can just really play my character to the best of my ability.”
Both Bisson and Roos have been happy to work with Director Jason Van Otterloo.
“He’s amazing,” Bisson said. “I don’t think I would want anybody else to be honest. He puts in hours and hours of work into just making everything, making the actors—the stage, over probably 100 hours spent in the theatre working hard.”
Roos and Bisson both have experience working with Van Otterloo as both were in last year’s production of We Will Rock You.
“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with Mr. Van over the musical that we did last year and my experiences here,” Roos said. “The amount of detail he puts in the scheduling and just the approachability that you can have with Mr. Van is really nice.
“I can just go to him and ask him questions in a positive and easily accepting environment, which he just perpetrates throughout all his deeds.”
So why should people come and see the play?
“It’s a real story,” Bisson said. “It is something that has affected our day-to-day life, especially in the courtroom as well.
“It’s quite rare to see a play that is more on the serious side. It dives deeper into emotions, and I feel like that’s something that you can’t take for granted.”
Roos also encouraged people to see the play because of the true life aspects of the story and the modern parallels.
“We’ve all heard that we don’t want history to repeat itself,” he said. “Companies nowadays, they still take advantage of their workers. I think it’s important for people to be reminded of the societal issues that still go on today and how that affects regular people.”
Showtimes at the Lecture Theatre are at 7:30 p.m. are Wednesday, Nov. 19 to Saturday, Nov. 23. Tickets cost $12 for Adults and $8 for Students (18 years and younger) and are available at the main office or at the door by cash or digital payment.
“I’m just excited to put on the show. It’s going to be fun,” Bisson said.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
