This World in a Woman’s Hands
Two beautiful productions have focused on women construction workers in recent months. Shotgun Players in Berkeley is currently presenting This World in a Woman’s Hands, which is about women who worked as ship-builders in Richmond, CA during World War II. Over the summer, Flyaway Productions did a run at SOMArts in San Francisco of The Ballad of Polly Ann, about women who contributed to the construction of Bay Area bridges. Both productions told stories about women’s lives that I had never heard before.
This Word In A Woman’s Hands
Although “Rosie the Riveter” posters have become pop symbols of the power of women workers, we seldom hear any stories about the day-to-day lives of the 18 million women who worked in U.S. factories during World War II while the men were fighting overseas. This World in a Woman’s Hands by Marcus Gardley points out that although all the “Rosies” in the posters are white, many women of color were working in the factories as well, struggling against racial as well as sexual discrimination.
With an inter-racial cast of nine women, This World in a Woman’s Hands explores the complex relationships among the women at Henry J. Kaiser’s shipyards in Richmond, California where 93,000 men and women worked around the clock in two shifts daily during World War II. The Richmond shipyards are famous for building 747 ships between 1941 and 1945, a feat not equalled anywhere else in the world, before or since.
The women of color were often placed in lower-paying jobs, and even when they got the better jobs, they were paid less than their white co-workers. At the plant in Richmond, the factory managers fought hard against efforts by the women of color to organize. The women eventually won equal pay, but their victory was brief. Once the war was over, all of the women were laid off so that the returning soldiers could have their jobs.
Much of the play is sung – either a cappella or accompanied by one on-stage bass player. The composer, Molly Holm, performed for eight years with Bobby McFerrin’s Voicestra and has worked with roots-music virtuoso, Linda Tillery, who is listed as a musical consultant for the show. The show’s music reflects those influences, and the jazzy style of Holm’s compositions evokes the period of the piece as well as the sounds of the factory. African-American spirituals also add to the emotional texture of the piece. All of the cast members have terrific voices, and there are moments when the music is simply breath-taking.
The Ballad of Polly Ann
The Ballad of Polly Ann is a dance piece choreographed by Jo Kreiter with music by Pamela Z. As research for the piece, Kreiter interviewed six women who worked on Bay Area bridges – women who were pile drivers, iron workers, laborers, carpenters and crane operators. Pamela Z integrated excerpts from those interviews with sounds of construction, cars, and the ocean to create rhythmic sound loops that serve as the music for the dancers.
The most remarkable thing about The Ballad of Polly Ann is the way it conveys both the exhilaration and the fear that the women experienced working on steel girders high above the water. Kreiter’s company, Flyaway Productions, specializes in “off-the-ground dances that expose the range and power of female physicality,” and much of this piece is performed on suspended girders and platforms and on a tall scaffolding around the edge of the stage. The YouTube clip below will give you a sense of the work.
The Ballad of Polly Ann takes its title from the 1870’s ballad about John Henry, “the steel driving man”, whose wife, Polly Ann, takes up his hammer when John Henry dies. The dancers perform a series of scenes that focus on specific aspects of the women’s work experiences, such as their responses to the jeers of male co-workers, the sense of autonomy they get from their paychecks, and the thrill of looking at the ocean from a great height.
The fact that the dancers are often suspended in air or manipulating large beams is a constant reminder to the audience of the sheer physical strength of the women. Kreiter says, “We experiment with height, speed and gravity, dancing on steel objects that are both architectural and fabricated. We place dancers anywhere from two to one hundred feet off the ground . . . At its core, our work explores the female body– its tumultuous expressions of strength and fragility.”
Both of these productions show women workers taking tremendous pride in working on challenging, large-scale projects. There is a Rosie the Riveter Monument on the site of one of the Richmond shipyards. The monument is the length of one of the Liberty ships that the women were building, and it visually makes the point that those ships were huge. Similarly, the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge are both amazing construction feats. The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest span in the world when it was built, and cynics believed that the Bay Bridge would be impossible to build due to the potential impact of turbulent waters and gusty winds.
The ability of the women portrayed in these productions to do their jobs in the face of severe discrimination and physical danger is a triumph of women’s hearts, minds, and bodies. Thanks so much to everyone involved in these two productions for shining a light on this important piece of women’s history. In a world where men generally get all the credit for large public construction projects, it is refreshing to see these two tributes to courageous women pioneers.
This World in a Woman’s Hands runs through October 18, 2009 at Shotgun Players in Berkeley, CA. There is more information at: http://www.shotgunplayers.org/womans.htm
For more information about The Ballad of Polly Ann, please visit the website of FlyAway Productions at: http://www.flyawayproductions.com/. On October 24, 2009, they will be honoring ten women who are building bridges between women in the arts and civic life. The evening will include performances by Flyaway Productions and various guest artists as well as intimate, personal acceptance speeches by each of the awardees. For more information, see The 10 Women Campaign on their website.