Richmond Rosies serve as inspiration for riveting stage production
Carah Herring
10/17/2009 05:04:09 AM PDT
The Contra Costa Times

The iconic picture of the muscular World War II-era Rosie the Riveter permeates popular culture and art.

And through performing arts, award-winning playwright Marcus Gardley is trying to educate people about the origins of Rosies in Richmond.

Gardley, a West Oakland native, penned This World in a Woman's Hands, which chronicles the story of the female workers in the historic Richmond shipyards. The stage production by the Berkeley-based Shotgun Players opened in early September with a special presentation at the Nevin Community Center in Richmond; its extended run ends Sunday.

Gardley's grandmother, who moved from Louisiana to Richmond in the 1940s for a better life and better wages as a Rosie, served as the playwright's inspiration. Growing up, Gardley had many friends in the Bay Area who also had grandparents who had worked in the shipyards.

"(Our grandparents') story is still here, but no one really talks about it," said Gardley, 31, who now lives on the East Coast as an assistant professor of African-American theater and playwriting at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. "I've always wanted to tell that story and also do research on the history of the community."

The play explores the relationships and friendships, struggles and triumphs of Richmond's female shipyard workers. It brings to light that Rosie not only represented middle-class white women but women of all ethnic backgrounds. The shipyards were celebrated for their high efficiency and production during the war but had more than their share of workplace issues: dangerous conditions, racism in the form of pay inequity and job assignments, husbands fighting overseas.

This World pairs these complexities with a chorus of jazzy skats underscored by a lone string bass.

It took Gardley three years of writing, research and collaboration with music director Molly Holm to bring the play to the stage.

Before they debuted on the Ashby Stage, Gardley and the Shotgun Players agreed that performances in Richmond were important. The Nevin center, in the city's Iron Triangle neighborhood, hosted three free performances over Labor Day weekend.

"I hope the audience will walk away with a sense of pride about their community and that they learn something about the history of this period and these women," said Gardley, an alumnus of the Yale School of Drama and San Francisco State.

This is Gardley's second collaboration with the Shotgun Players. The first, 2006's Love is a Dream House in Lorin, chronicled the history of a South Berkeley neighborhood.