Julia Thurston’s play, in which she stars alongside a quartet of other American actors, focuses on the final day before the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York, 1911.
Five characters represent a cross-section of the 150 women and girls, mostly immigrants (Jewish, Irish, Italian) of all ages who perished in the garment sweat-shop, where they worked around 12 hours per day.
The Maltese sisters, sensible Lucia (Thurston) and movie-mad Rosaria (Caroline Letelier), are lifted directly from this tragic event, with the women around them created to echo the circumstances of many.
Rose (Everleigh Brenner) is the rabbi’s daughter, operating the button machine on the floor above the main workers. She seems to exude an air of superiority and authority.
Ida (Serena Lehman) is excited at her upcoming wedding and baby. Living with her beau, Max, out of wedlock, she already chafes at convention, with no parents to comment.
Then there’s Annie (Olivia Gaidry), with a large Irish family to consider, seeing her job as a way to keep them off the breadline with an air of resignation.
Paved With Gold And Ashes lets us get to know these women individually, their circumstances, dreams, and personalities, while making careful comment on un-unionised factory conditions.
The women are locked in except for their half-hour lunch break, and harsh rules prevent them talking or taking any waste scrap home. Their sewing will clothe wealthier bodies than their own.
Men have the upper hand, from the foreman with his rubber-soled shoes, to the boyfriend Lucia left behind for a better life, and those who determine what a life is worth.
In a set draped with white fabrics and dotted with signs about bag searches, the girls are dressed identically and speak with standard American accents (a conscious decision by the author).
There is a sense of dread throughout whether you know the story or not. The play up to the start of the fire is chat monologues – to the audience – and humming/singing.
When the fire starts, it is a flicker, then a flame. The stage fills up with the ‘smoke’ within which the women try to escape or even see beyond a few feet in the panic.
Lit and staged with great effect by Stephen Smith, this scene has the horror and emotion to capture the audience and highlight the injustice that is left to coffins full of young women charred or broken by blunt impact.
In Paved With Gold And Ashes, Thurston has created a world in miniature to commemorate the many.
After a successful run in Edinburgh last summer, this play played as part of Threedumb Theatre’s double bill at Barons Court Theatre.
*****