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Factory Girls -
Tour
Playwright - Frank McGuinness
Director - Guy Holland
Designer - Evelyn Barbour
Lighting Designer - Dave Shea
Dialect Coach - Peter Ballance
Company - 7:84 Theatre Company
Scotland
Cast see end of review
2003 & 2002 Tours Venues & Dates - see end of review
Seen to review at Paisley Arts Centre in 2002
Run Time - 2 hours 20mins including 15 mins interval
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Women working are the heart.
First performed in 1982, this could seen as an early anti-globalisation
play. Set in Donegal, Ireland when a factory demands its workforce increase
their output so the selling prices of their shirts compare with those
made in even lower waged countries. But the heart of it is five women,
their support of each other, their growing realisation no one, not their
bosses or even Bonner the union rep, their husbands or the priest is really
looking out for them.
Reflecting the begining of working women doing it for themselves, it recalls
the time when sit-ins and lock outs, not to mention strikes could still
be quickly resorted to when protesting. And management? They tried to
cope with cash flow problems by introducing three day working weeks.
As the longest employed Una, Kay Gallie, gives a canny and well
stitched playing, as she hauls in her trunk for the sit-in or determinely
gets her point across. Wisdom distilled sparkles from this actor and her
playing. Sally Reid (just qualified from Langside) also shines
as the youngest, the fetcher and carrier Rosemary, the real girl of the
five. Vera, Fletcher Mathers and Rebecca, Helen Lomax
are old friends who go back a long way, and as them, Fletcher Mathers
and Helen Lomax got spontaneous, appreciative applause for
their tender singing of "Still I love him".
Ellen's the unoffical shop steward, living on when all 3 of her children
succumbed to TB. She's the kind of woman who is organized, firm and not
one to be put down easily, in an increasingly confident playing, Patrica
Ross has her telling it straight to Bonner and Rohan. Bonner's
rather dully played by Matt Costello but David Ireland's
Rohan, the graduate management brought-in, convinces as a man, middleaged
before his thirties, at a loss when women stand their ground.
McGuinness's women characters' difficult, vulnerable lives are echoed
by people's experiences here in industrial Scotland. "That's whit
happen tae us." "Aye and we hud oor ain Una." "She
tellt them, did she no?" The three women in front of me recalled
their own struggles. But a friend in her 20s had said "Factory Girls?
What relevance has that to me, they should try being in a call centre,
no one looks out for you there, not even your "fellow" workers."
7:84, I look forward to your next revival Dario Fo's "Can't Pay,
Won't Pay" in Spring 2003, but I hope you're planning some new plays
reflecting current political and working trials as The Abbey Dublin and
McGuinness did in the early eighties. This new century's workers need
dramatising.
© Thelma Good 4 October 2002. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Review
of 2003 tour.
Cast:
Ellen - Patricia Ross
Rebecca - Helen Lomax
Rosemary - Sally Reid
Una - Kay Gallie
Vera - Fletcher Mathers
Bonner - Matt Costello
Rohan - (2002 tour) David Ireland replaced by Keith Macpherson
in 2003 tour.
7:84 Theatre Company's production of Factory Girls
2003 Revival tour with
22 May at 7.30pm
Glasgow Barlanark Community Centre 0845 330 3501.
24 May at 7.30pm Glasgow The Couper Institute, Clarkston
Road 0845 330 3501.
27 - 31 May at 7.30pm Glasgow Citizens Theatre 0141 429
0022.
3 June at 7.30pm Glasgow Langside Hall, Langside Avenue
0845 330 3501.
4 - 5 June at 8pm Stirling macrobert, Stirling University
01786 466 666.
6 June at 7.30pm Glasgow Barmulloch Community Centre 0845
330 3501.
2002 Tour
3 - 5 Oct at 7.30pm Paisley Arts Centre 0141 887 1010
8 - 9 Oct at 8.00pm St Andrews Byre Theatre 01334 475 000
11 Oct at 7.30pm Musselburgh Brunton Theatre 0131 665 2240
12 Oct at 7.45pm Cumbernauld Theatre 01236 732 887
15 Oct at 7:30pm Kirkcaldy Adam Smith 01592 412 929
16 Oct at 7.30pm Kelso Tait Hall 01750 724 901
17 Oct at 7.30pm Irvine Magnum Theatre 01294 313 010
18 Oct at 7.30pm Ballachulish Town Hall 01855 811 979
19 Oct at 7.30pm Oban Corran Halls 01631 567 333
21 Oct at 8.00pm Aberdeen The Lemontree 01224 642 230
22 Oct at 7.30pm Inverness Eden Court 01463 234234
24 Oct at 7.30pm Drumchapel Kinfauns Centre 0845 330 3501
25 Oct at 8.00pm Dunfermline Carnegie Hall 01383 314 000
29 - 2 Nov at 8.00pm Edinburgh Traverse Theatre 0131 228 1404
5 - 7 Nov at 8.00pm Glasgow Tron Theatre 0141 552 4267
8 Nov at 7.30pm Largs Academy 0141 334 6686
9 Nov at 7.30pm Kilmarnock Palace Theatre 01563 554 900
Tour ends
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