If you don’t leave this show furious you have no heart. The story alone should make you furious: a group of young women, full of life and hope, take the only jobs available to them and earn early deaths for their pains. That the story is based on fact—the young women in question worked at the Radium Dial Company, in Ottawa, Illinois, in the 1920s, painting the faces of clocks and watches with radioactive paint, ingesting lots of radium in the process and contracting deadly illnesses as a result of their exposure—makes it all the more infuriating.
And that’s another reason I left this show from Northlight Theatre furious—the opportunity wasted by Jessica Thebus, who wrote the book and lyrics, and Andre Pluess and Amanda Dehnert, who wrote the music. They were given the chance to transform Melanie Marnich’s compelling drama These Shining Lives into a musical, and the result is a musical with no drama.
Nor do Thebus and company seem interested creating in that kind of show. Instead they brightly pass over it all, creating beautiful scenes, entertaining us with sprightly, witty songs, dazzling us with lighting effects. Through it all the women at the center of the story remain bland and forgettable, just names on a work roster, the way their bosses saw them. Even the wonderful period costumes, designed by Linda Roethke, do little to give the characters the illusion of a third dimension.
Through 6/14: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2:30 and 8 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Wed 1 and 7:30 PM (check website for variations) North Shore Center for the Performing Arts 9501 Skokie, Skokie 847-673-6300northlight.org $35-$78
