{"id":3344,"date":"2020-12-31T13:52:55","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T19:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/?page_id=3344"},"modified":"2020-12-31T13:54:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-31T19:54:03","slug":"these-shining-lives-review","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/these-shining-lives-review\/","title":{"rendered":"These Shining Lives Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"3344\" class=\"elementor elementor-3344\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-4118ed8 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"4118ed8\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-06b362c\" data-id=\"06b362c\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-3013a2e elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"3013a2e\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div id=\"article-section-header\"><section><div id=\"article-header\"><div class=\"article-header-title\"><h1 class=\"article-headline\">Theater review: Performances glow in UMD\u2019s &#8216;These Shining Lives&#8217;<\/h1><div class=\"light-grey byline\">Written By:\u00a0<span id=\"noLink\" class=\"ttu\">Sheryl Jensen, for the News Tribune<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0<time class=\"timestamp\">Mar 2nd 2018 &#8211; 2pm.<\/time><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section><\/div><div id=\"article-section-body\"><div id=\"top-social-share\"><div class=\"addthis_inline_share_toolbox\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.duluthnewstribune.com\/entertainment\/theater\/4411939-theater-review-performances-glow-umds-these-shining-lives\" data-title=\"Theater review: Performances glow in UMD\u2019s 'These Shining Lives' | Duluth News Tribune\" data-description=\"&quot;This isn't a fairy tale, though it starts like one. This isn't a tragedy, though it ends like one.&quot; Setting the framework for Melanie Marnich's lyrical script, &quot;These Shining Lives,&quot; the play's central character, Catherine Donahue (Sarah Dickson...\"><div id=\"atstbx\" class=\"at-resp-share-element at-style-responsive addthis-smartlayers addthis-animated at4-show\" role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"at-a1d7d07c-1eaf-42fb-8c5c-e30f3ce2a7d5\"><span id=\"at-a1d7d07c-1eaf-42fb-8c5c-e30f3ce2a7d5\" class=\"at4-visually-hidden\"><\/span><div class=\"at-share-btn-elements\">\u00a0<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"article-header-media\"><div class=\"image\"><div class=\"landscape \"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"topMedia\" class=\" lazyloaded\" src=\"https:\/\/www.duluthnewstribune.com\/incoming\/article1718182.ece\/alternates\/BASE_LANDSCAPE\/Mitchell%20Dallman%20is%20Mr.%20Rufus%20Reed%2C%20Sarah%20Dickson%20is%20Catherine%20Donahue%20and%20Addison%20Sim%20is%20Tom%20Donahue%20in%20the%20University%20of%20Minnesota%20Duluth%27s%20production%20of%20%22These%20Shining%20Lives%2C%22%20which%20opens%20today.%20Photo%20by%20Brett%20Groehler.\" alt=\"Mitchell Dallman is Mr. Rufus Reed, Sarah Dickson is Catherine Donahue and Addison Sim is Tom Donahue in the University of Minnesota Duluth's production of &quot;These Shining Lives,&quot; which opens today. Photo by Brett Groehler.\" width=\"\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.duluthnewstribune.com\/incoming\/article1718182.ece\/alternates\/BASE_LANDSCAPE\/Mitchell%20Dallman%20is%20Mr.%20Rufus%20Reed%2C%20Sarah%20Dickson%20is%20Catherine%20Donahue%20and%20Addison%20Sim%20is%20Tom%20Donahue%20in%20the%20University%20of%20Minnesota%20Duluth%27s%20production%20of%20%22These%20Shining%20Lives%2C%22%20which%20opens%20today.%20Photo%20by%20Brett%20Groehler.\" data-srcset=\"\" \/><\/div><div class=\"caption\">Mitchell Dallman is Mr. Rufus Reed, Sarah Dickson is Catherine Donahue and Addison Sim is Tom Donahue in the University of Minnesota Duluth&#8217;s production of &#8220;These Shining Lives,&#8221; which opens today. Photo by Brett Groehler.<\/div><\/div><\/div><div id=\"piano-inline-container\">\u00a0<\/div><div class=\"article-body\"><div class=\"main-body\"><div class=\"first-p\"><p>\u201cThis isn\u2019t a fairy tale, though it starts like one. This isn\u2019t a tragedy, though it ends like one.\u201d<\/p><\/div><div class=\"p402_premium\"><p>Setting the framework for Melanie Marnich\u2019s lyrical script, \u201cThese Shining Lives,\u201d the play\u2019s central character, Catherine Donahue (Sarah Dickson), warns us early on about the fateful journey we are about to go on with her.<\/p><p>Set in the 1920s and &#8217;30s outside Chicago, the play is based on the true story of women who worked at the Radium Dial Company, painting the glowing numbers on watches and clocks.<\/p><p>The lethal effects of exposure to the radium-based paint became even more direct since the women would moisten the tip of their paint brushes in their mouths and then dip them in the radium, repeating for every number.<\/p><p>After years of exposure, the women got increasingly sick as they moved slowly toward their excruciatingly painful deaths. Denying the effects of the radium, the cold-hearted company fired the women when they were too sick to work any longer.<\/p><p>Sarah Dickson brings a nobility, elegance and luminosity to Donahue, who was one of the real-life \u201cRadium Girls.\u201d Donahue\u2019s courage and tenacity in fighting against the company helped pave the way for worker protections.<\/p><p>Lovely character work is also performed by the actresses playing Donahue\u2019s friends at the factory: Charlotte Purcell (Grace Kelly Smith), Francis O\u2019Connell (Andrea Leonard) and Pearl Payne (Tolu Ekisola).<\/p><p>Each of the women has chances to shine as they show first their humor and camaraderie, and eventually their horror over what is happening to them. Charlotte laments, \u201cThey did this, and they knew it! They threw us away for a few watches! That\u2019s what we\u2019re worth!\u201d<\/p><p>Addison Sim has a sweet turn as Tom, Catherine\u2019s husband. Mitchell Dallman is convincing as Rufus Reed, the smarmy company foreman who keeps silent, even as he knows too well what is happening to his workers.<\/p><p>Ellen Monzo\u2019s elegant costumes are spot on, both to evoke the time period and also to establish the characters\u2019 personalities.<\/p><div id=\"in-article-2-container\"><div id=\"in-article-2\">Projections are used effectively on several panels to give a sense of time, place and mood through stills, film, abstract stars and constellations. Newspaper clippings from the period also add power and veracity to the play\u2019s themes.<\/div><\/div><p>Performed without an intermission, the scenes flow one into another with minimal changes in between. Director William Payne decided to add period music sung by the cast as a chorus for pre-show music, as underscore for some scenes, and during the shifts.<\/p><p>While the singing adds to the period flavor, at times it slows the pace. Sometimes two or three verses are used where one might do. The music is haunting but there are occasional pitch problems with harmonies.<\/p><p>The strongest of the vocal pieces is the stirring \u201cBread and Roses,\u201d an anthem that came out of the early women\u2019s trade union movement.<\/p><p>While this could just be a play about dying, the women\u2019s transcendent spirit to support each other, and to worry about those who followed them, keeps the torch of that anthem aflame.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theater review: Performances glow in UMD\u2019s &#8216;These Shining Lives&#8217; Written By:\u00a0Sheryl Jensen, for the News Tribune\u00a0|\u00a0Mar 2nd 2018 &#8211; 2pm. \u00a0Mitchell Dallman is Mr. Rufus Reed, Sarah Dickson is Catherine Donahue and Addison Sim is Tom Donahue in the University of Minnesota Duluth&#8217;s production of &#8220;These Shining Lives,&#8221; which opens today. Photo by Brett Groehler.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3344","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3344"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3346,"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3344\/revisions\/3346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anngumpperdesign.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}