A documentary play about the Radium Girls, prepared by the Baraka youth theatre, “Shining in the Dark” will be presented to the audience from Tuesday evening, March 7th. The play, which will start at 20:00 at Arabahmet Culture House, will continue to be staged every Tuesday and Saturday until March 25 after its premiere on March 7th. Profits will be donated to Famagusta TMK Parent-Teacher Association in memory of the Angels Team In the play, where the solidarity contribution is priced at 20 TL.
Tickets can be purchased from the Khora Kitap Cafe or from the entrance on performance days. The Baraka Cultural Centre announced that the income of the performances on Tuesday, March 7 and Saturday, March 11, will be donated to the Famagusta TMK Parents Association in memory of the students and teachers of the “Team of Angels”.
“I wish you to imagine a world where women and labour are liberated”.
Written by the facilitator of the Baraka Theatre Team, Nazen Şansal, “Glowing in the Dark” 
tells the life story of young working girls who paint watch dials with radium paint and suffer from health problems, and their struggle against the bosses. The screenings, which will start during the week of International Working Women’s Day, said, “Hearing the voices of these ghosts, whose lives have darkened for the sake of illuminating the hours, but still shed light on us a hundred years after and call for the class struggle; I wish you to imagine a world where women and labour are liberated” All theatre lovers over the age of 7 are invited. Due to the content of the play, it is strongly requested not to bring children under the age of 7 years.
The Radium Girls were workers in the USA in the early 1900s who suffered radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint which contained radium. The bosses walking around the factory wearing lead masks had instructed the women to lick the tip of the brush, saying the paint was harmless. After sickness and death, some of the working women sued the bosses. The Radium Girls case was one of the first cases in which bosses were held responsible for the health of their employees. The story of working women, who have been shining under the ground for 100 years with the radium element in their bones, meets the audience with a special screening during the week of International Working Women’s Day.
Source (Turkish): TRNC Department of Culture
