377 days - Blog #90 - The Most Dangerous Woman, or how I spent my Saturday night

There have been times in my life when I’ve waxed nostalgic for other times and wished I could have lived in another generation.  But that’s all codswallop.  Besides, this is a great time to be on this earth.  Specifically, this little part of the earth in Central Mass.

I came back here over three years ago because I knew there was an excitement I hadn’t noticed in the Worcester environs when I was in my 20’s.  About art.  About music.  About theater.  About the city itself and how it can be part of a change in the larger universe.

Just about the time I came back here, a friend of mine and some other local artists decided to start a new theater company, 4th Wall Stage Company.  I have been able to witness it from near and through conversation as it has grown into the community of Worcester theaters, as well as taking some bolder steps for the stage that several of its peers might not.  

Last night I went to see the first show of their fourth season.  I went mostly because my friend was the star.  And by the star, I mean she was it.  Two acts of a one woman show.  That in and of itself is an accomplishment worth noting and supporting.  The woman she portrayed was Mother Jones.  The story is one that I’m very glad I spent an evening to see.

I had the privilege of sitting with the son of the playwright during our after show drinks and got to learn some details about how this play came about.  Ted Eiland wrote this script originally as a screenplay.  It actually earned a reading and polite decline from Joanne Woodward, after which he turned it into a play.  The play won a contest and performance off Broadway.  Since then it has been staged twice, in Sturbridge several years ago.  And then again this weekend.  Hopefully that is a spark to something else.

I confess most of my association with Mother Jones is the magazine I follow on Facebook.  I actually find their journalism to be pretty decent.  Granted it is an authentically liberal leaning piece of reporting… but only because it, like the woman for whom it is named, sheds light on the social injustices of our country.

And holy cow, this woman did some pretty fabulous stuff.  In the years of her life that could just as easily have been spent embroidering or reading by the fire.  Especially at the end of the 19^th and start of the 20^th century, when forty was old age.  This woman lived for a century.

I won’t give you her whole history.  I will note a few things, though.  I had a pretty shitty week, mostly for no reason.  Then I heard the narrative of her losing four children and a husband to yellow fever when she was roughly my age.  That certainly puts the approach towards forty into a different perspective.  Especially when I consider what she did after that.  Instead of letting life get her down, she started her own business.  But then it burned down.  So she went out and championed for the workers of this country.

Yeah, that’s some pretty kick ass living.

The production utilized some media – images that would flash across a screen as Mother Jones related the details of her fights.  A lot were about children working in mills.  Horrors I knew about in some vague recess of my memory of history… but pleasantly push aside in pursuit of the more romantic details.  I found myself thinking about those children with hunched shoulders or lost fingers and wondered what adults they grew up to become… if they could even do that.  Am I the descendent of any of those souls hardened before their bodies grew to maturity?

People like to dis progressivism. This is what it’s about, not the destruction of the American Dream.  But we don’t remember.  We don’t remember Mother Jones.  I know we studied labor and the strikes and all those fights in US History.  But it was dull and… not romantic.  Because, somehow, I’ve decided in my brain that war is more romantic.  So… in a way… isn’t that a victory for the robber barons and millionaires billionaires that we deem this story dull and don’t pay attention to it?  So we forget it and just take for granted that children were never are never exploited in this way.  And yet they still are, aren’t they?  I thought about the polyester clothes I was wearing, wondering what child in another country was subject to unfair conditions to make them.

Sigh…

But that’s not fun to think about.

Although I am going to go on a slight tangent here and correct myself.  One of my favorite BBC movies is about textile mills and uses a love story to showcase (and quite fairly, I think) the hardships of the worker vs. the need to be responsible business owners.  In fact, as I listened to Mother Jones, I imagined that beautiful horror of the fluff from the cotton mills in North and South.

Anyway, I’ve strayed away from this production.  Then again, I think that speaks to the strength of it.  To me, that is really good theater.  A show that stays with me as a member of the audience and makes me think about something larger than myself.  Something that provokes in me a need to examine myself… and be more conscious of those clothes I buy.  

Hm.

And to get me there, it was a well done production.  Again.  A one woman show.  Two acts.  Once upon a time I used to count the number of lines I had to learn and find disappointment in a small number.  Now I count them and get overwhelmed.  I consider the memorizing of an entire play a feat of which any actor can render herself proud.  But to learn them and speak them with the truth of the story and the character is even more impressive.  Then again, there were points when I lost track of the fact she was alone on the stage.  She described conversations and altered the voice of another character to give just enough nuance to take one out of the monologue.  

And man, it’s not like there was a lot of comedy.  There were a lot of facts.  A lot of dreary history.  I didn’t feel somber. I mean I know I’m there already, but I felt moved to think about and do something for these injustices.  That’s a pretty important way of inhabiting a character.  More to the point of inhabiting, the actress is not an old lady… and yet I believed the age that was not there with how she made her steps and sat and made expression.  A job very well done.

The play was performed at a local museum (Huzzah!).  (The Worcester Historical Museum is a beautiful space.  It is a really valuable collection that showcases all the unexpected but truly amazing things that come from Worcester.  So you should go there.)  It wasn’t a traditional theater space.  It worked well for the piece.  The wood paneled walls helped to transport you to another time.  It was also a nice setup with tables and the option of some refreshments – so you could have a drink after looking at those depressing pictures of children.  The media added a nice dimension to the already vivid script, with the images and some sound and light to shift one’s focus.

So, yeah, it was a night well spent.

Sad to say that was the closing night, so I can’t urge you dear Readers to go see this.  I can, however, urge you to go learn about Mother Jones and contemplate her battles and how we can still fight her good fight today.