by George Hatza, Freelance Arts Writer
When discussing her new play, “Intimate Exposures,” acclaimed playwright and Lancaster County native D.W. Gregory addressed the premise that critics often discern political themes embedded in her work. That’s certainly true in the case of her most famous play, “Radium Girls” (1999), set in the 1920s. It explores the poisoning of young women who worked painting the dials on luminous watches until they began falling ill with an unknown disease.
It was soon discovered that radium is a lethal substance.
“The themes and issues in that play are still present in American culture,” said Gregory, now a Shepherdstown, W. Va., resident who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Seton Hall University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in drama from Catholic University. “At its core, it’s about the tensions between the pursuit of profit and the obligations a corporation has to the community. That same pattern has continued all the way to the present: You have a product. A company brings it to the market. The public buys it. Then there are suggestions of problems denied by the company. The company stonewalls before finally capitulating.”
“The most recent example was with the Boeing 737 Max. Boeing denied there were problems with the planes even after two significant crashes. This pattern plays out in cases over and over again.”
Thus, when Gregory’s work is deemed political, her argument is that all theater is, quoting the words of critic Martin Esslin published in 1976 in his book “An Anatomy of Drama”: “All drama is … a political event: It either reasserts or undermines the code of conduct of a given society.”
“Radium Girls” has received more than 2,000 productions. In addition, seven of Gregory’s full-length plays have been produced by Equity companies.
There are certainly political undertones at work in Gregory’s latest play, “Intimate Exposures,” commissioned and produced by Reading Theater Project. The action is set primarily in a Reading brothel that operated during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The two-act drama, with original music and arrangements by Chris Heslop, will have its world premiere on Nov. 8, 9, 15, and 16, at 7:30 p.m., and on Nov. 10 and 17, at 2 p.m., in the WCR Center for the Arts, 140 N. Fifth St., Reading.
The story of how “Intimate Exposures” came to be is nearly as compelling as the tale it relates. Vicki Haller Graff, Reading Theater Project’s artistic director, said work on the play began in 2019 when former RTP actress Kath Godwin gave her a book of photography entitled “Working Girls: An American Brothel, Circa 1892,” edited by San Francisco-based photographic curator Robert Flynn Johnson.
It’s important to note the subtitle of the anthology: “The Secret Photographs of William I. Goldman.” Goldman (1856-1922) was a real photographer with a studio at Fifth and Penn streets in Reading. He photographed portraits of Reading aristocracy and mingled socially with the city’s upper class. However, at night, he spent his hours at Sal Shearer’s swank brothel at Eighth and Walnut streets. He found the women interesting, although more as subjects and friends than as objects of desire. And eventually he secured the madam’s permission to photograph them, both in the parlor and in his studio.
But back to the anthology that fell into Graff’s hands. Serious work on a play based on the collection of photographs and the story of Goldman came to a halt with the onset of the pandemic.
“That provided us time to do some research, and we eventually found our way to D.W. Gregory, a published and internationally produced playwright who was born in Lititz,” Graff said. “We originally met her in 2017 during a public reading in Temple of her new play, ‘Memoirs of a Forgotten Man.’”
Gregory said that she and Graff became aware of a grant offered by the Network of Ensemble Theaters, and they agreed to apply for it in hopes of getting seed money to develop a play inspired by the photographs. Indeed, it was a Reading story, and that is a key element of RTP’s mission. Although the company’s grant application was denied, it was decided the project was too interesting not to pursue.
The book that Godwin gave to Graff emerged from a fortuitous discovery by the aforementioned Johnson, who discovered some loose photographs at a postcard fair northeast of San Francisco in the early years of this century. In one of the photos, a woman was shown holding the Reading Eagle newspaper leading him to the Berks History Center, which provided him with background on the bordello and on Goldman. Eventually, Johnson located more photos through the original vendor at the fair, gathering more than 200.
What struck Johnson, and Graff and Gregory as well, is the nature of the pictures.
“They were nothing close to pornographic,” Gregory said. “Granted, there’s nudity, but none of them ever circulated. … As for Goldman, he didn’t have a journal or any personal papers. But we did learn he was a painter as well. And the photos exude that quality. There’s nothing lurid or disrespectful about his work.”
“They’re very artistic,” Graff concurred. “They look like Renaissance and Impressionist paintings. That’s the way they’re styled.”
By the summer of 2022, RTP organized a series of meetings and table-reads attended by about 15 people, including actors, writers, designers, board members, and directors, with the goal of imagining what stories lay behind the photos. Gregory attended those meetings as well.
“We talked about the photographs and some possible themes that could evolve into a play,” Gregory said. “We posed questions such as ‘What do these pictures say to us?’ We brainstormed. Then we asked the group to throw out ideas of what the photos communicated. And from that word list, two stood out: ‘dignity’ and ‘elevate.’”
“Questions such as ‘Is this work or exploitation?’ regarding Sal’s sporting girls, and concepts such as ‘Capitalism vs. prostitution.’ In short, what connects us to these pictures? Next came potential characters and plot. We worked from the outside in. Who are these people? What are their stories? What do we want to say with this play?”
For Gregory, Graff, and the play’s director, Jody Reppert, the answer to that last question led to another: How is art transformative? For Gregory, wrestling with that question leads directly to the throughline of Billy Goldman.
“How did it come to be that Goldman took photos in Sal’s brothel?” Gregory wondered. “How did that change him? What impact would those photos have on the women who posed? The basis for any play is transformation. Something always changes.”
One of the photos that intrigued everyone involved with this process was a nude picture of Goldman that he chose to include in the collection. It remains an enigma as to why he did so and who was behind the camera, leading directly to some plot elements in “Intimate Exposures.”
In the play, the central characters are Billy Goldman, played by Richard Bradbury, and Edie Price, a fascinating prostitute performed by Cat Whelan. The other four actors – Karyn Reppert, Walidah McKnight, Lady Strongman, and Peter Flores – play multiple roles, in many cases, foils of each other.
“We have imagined that there is some sort of deeper connection between Billy and Edie,” Graff said. “Her motives are ambiguous. So, we let the audience figure out what that relationship could be.”
As in “Radium Girls,” a feminist theme also runs through “Intimate Exposures.”
“For Sal Shearer, the madam, it’s the best-paying job she could find,” Graff continued. “Her husband, world-renowned landscape painter Christopher Shearer, left her and took off for Europe, leaving her to raise their two young sons, later returning with a new family. The women in this play are doing the best they can to live.”
Reppert agreed: “In many ways, it’s about the empowerment of women, a timely theme these days. The battle they were going through in society. They were looked upon as pariahs. But for many, there were no other options. They found a place to make a go of it on their own at Sal’s. Their stories connect with Sal’s place. It gives them the power to persevere.”
Gregory asks the question: “Can working girls be empowered? In the play, one of the girls in Sal’s house came there from a job as a clerk at John Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia. According to my research, many women who became prostitutes were recruited from department stores by wealthy men who wanted something on the side.”
Reppert is thrilled to be mounting “Intimate Exposures” in the WCR Center for the Arts. It’s not the first time he has directed there.
“I really love the flexibility of the performing space,” he said. “The audience is on the floor in the middle of everything. The architecture works so well with the period in which the play is set. And I’m using the proscenium stage for the musicians. Chris Heslop’s original music is inspired by the melodies of the time, and it adds another layer of feeling to the play.
“I find it amazing that our final draft of the play is its 12th incarnation,” he added. “Working with D.W. has been amazing. I’m just blown away by her revisions.”
Gregory and RTP reached an agreement in spring 2022. The play contains historic places and real people who lived in Reading at the turn of the 20th century, a gilded age for some but clearly not for all. Moral values were strict, and men sought relief from what Gregory calls a “social straitjacket” at places such as Sal’s, which did exist.
“In the end,” Gregory mused, “the play is a love story. Perhaps not a conventional love story. But yes, a love story.” And, in many ways, a mystery.
The production team features the work of stage manager Sean Sassaman, assistant stage manager Jewell A. Brown, costume designer Amanda Boandl, props designer Kathie Kustudich, set designer and builder Matt Iovino, lighting designer Charles Troxel, intimacy consultant Ebony Hicks, and production manager/music director Jimmy Damore.
Tickets for “Intimate Exposures” are available on the website at readingtheaterproject.org or by calling 484-706-9719. A Pay What You Will policy is in effect for the season, which allows theatergoers to pay as little as $0. The recommended ticket price is $25. The company’s auspicious theme for the 2024-2025 season is “Illuminate.”
George Hatza is the former Entertainment Editor of the Reading Eagle. He is retired and living in Exeter Township.
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