'Radium Girls' coming to LCHS stage Oct. 22-24

COEUR d’ALENE — The actors of Lake City High School's Troupe de Wolfe have a big task ahead of them.

Their first show of the season, "Radium Girls," is a heartbreaker.

"Reading about it, it’s really, really heavy. It is hard to put yourself in that place where I have to portray this girl who knows she’s going to die, and very soon,” senior Darian Juvan, who plays lead Radium Girl Grace Fryer, said Wednesday. "It’s rough. I hope that I can just do it justice, since she is a real person and she went through some horrible things."

Based on a book by D.W. Gregory, "Radium Girls" tells the true story of the girls who painted luminous watches when they were in fashion in the 1920s. These girls fell ill with a then-unknown illness — radiation poisoning — and Grace finds herself in court battling the corporate greed and dismissiveness of the U.S. Radium Corporation, and battling for her life.

"The students really fell in love with the play. They read it last year; they felt very passionate about the subject matter, about these women who were workers who were being poisoned by their own company and their company was trying to get away from any wrongdoing," said theater instructor Daniel Bell. "That really propelled women’s and workers’ rights. Companies have to be held liable and responsible for the health and safety of their employees, and the students felt very strongly about that."

This play was already planned for this year, and then COVID happened.

"There’s a lot of parallels happening with, what are companies going to do, what is the government going to do, how do we treat this pandemic?" Bell said. "And whose fault is it if you get called into work and you're sick? The students are seeing this was prevalent in the 1920s and it hasn’t gone away. We’re always going to be debating that relationship between the worker and the company."

Senior Parker Henley plays Arthur Roeder, head of the U.S. Radium Corporation and Grace's nemesis.

He said humanity is at the heart of this production.

"It’s really hard to decipher who really is a bad guy and who’s a good guy,” he said. "My character, the leader of the company, he’s at fault for a lot of what’s happened to the girls, but there’s also a lot of scenes with his family, and he’s a family man and he’s a nice guy.

"With all the characters, there’s this deep humanity because these were real people," he said. "That’s what’s really heavy for the play for me, just how human everyone is.”

Parker, who has been involved in every LCHS play since freshman year, doesn't mind rehearsing in masks.

"It helps us focus on other aspects," he said. "I’m just glad that we get to come and do the play. That’s the most important thing to me."

"Radium Girls" will play on the LCHS stage Oct. 22 through 24. COVID safety measures will be in place. Prices to be announced.