‘Radium Girls’ to be performed at CT Drama Festival
The award-winning Ellington High School drama troupe, Opening Knight Players, will present the play, Radium Girls, written by D.W. Gregory and directed by William Prenetta at the school, and then perform it as part of the CT Drama Festival Competition.
The play tells the story of three young New Jersey women who are employed to paint watches with radium-based paint, in order to make them glow, during the period between WWI and WWII.
Senior Will Naraghi plays Arthur Roeder, the president of the U.S. Radium Corporation, and manages the plant in which the women work. He said he enjoys playing a serious character who is the antagonist, but that distinction is somewhat vague at best.
“The story is about how Roeder comes to terms with the fact that he thought he was doing something that was good - there was also radium therapy coming out, to shrink tumors - but he actually wound up hurting a lot of people,” he said. “It’s much different than some of the other characters I’ve played. He’s complex to me, because he has this soft side, which we see when he’s with his wife. She sees that he is really wanting to help people, but in the plant, he is the big business man. He’s working to better the company, and that comes out as a little more assertive.”
Naraghi said his favorite scene is when Roeder is with his wife, played by Mo Veach, wherein she confronts him about lying to the government.
“Roeder knew that there were dangerous effects of radium, but I brush it off, because thought, ‘We can help people with this,’” he said. “She asks, ‘Did you lie on purpose?’ and I say, ‘Is that what you think?’ and she says, ‘Is that what YOU think?’ It’s a beautiful scene, because I want her to still love me and appreciate me, and think that I’m trying to do something right. It’s constantly me trying to get her back.”
Senior Molly Deptula plays Grace Fryer, one of the three young women who work in the watch factory, and said the role is different for her, as she usually plays the comic relief.
“It’s been a learning curve, for me, about how to be quiet,” she said. “It’s a lot more serious. But, I’m also finding the moments where it’s not all doom and gloom. It’s a very serious story line, but there are a lot of little moments where it’s more light-hearted and happy. It’s definitely been a challenge, and I’ve really enjoyed it.”
The health problems that result from working with the radium are also a challenge to portray, Deptula said.
“I have chronic migraines, so I’ve been drawing on that a lot,” she said. “It’s kind of a balancing act of how I show that she has all of these sides - she’s happy, but she’s also very sad and very tired a lot of the time, and still have enough energy so that it’s engaging for the audience to watch.”
Naraghi said he thinks audiences will enjoy the intensity and history of the show.
“It’s super-rich, super jam-packed with complex relationships. It’s got an almost-magical element to it. It’s almost like sci-fi, but it’s real,” he said. “It will be an interesting experience for the audience to see how our history is so rich and sometimes we don’t even know about it.”
Radium Girls will be performed March 2 and 3, at 7:30 pm in the Gordon C. Getchell Auditorium at Ellington High School. Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at openingknightplayers.com/ticket-sales/, and are $10 for adults and $8 for students and senior citizens.
On March 4, the Opening Knight Players will present Radium Girls as part of the annual Connecticut Drama Festival Competition to be held at Platt High School, in Meriden. Ellington High School will compete against six other productions from high schools all around Connecticut. This is the first in-person festival held since 2020.
