THE EIGHT HOURS
Every time I read something about those times, I wish I had lived in them. Things were horrible and violent and dirty, I know, but everyone seems so alive in all the accounts. There were real live villains and heroes, and people were actually trying to do something about the evil that existed.
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The Eight Hours takes us back. The title is taken from the eight-hour workday movement, which the Haymarket murders grew to represent. But if the play revolves around those killings, it is unconcerned with the facts. Instead, it tries to reveal, through Brechtian, cabaret-style story telling, the atmosphere and ideology of the era.
Into the workers’ hell now come Joe Fleisch (Jim Tomasello) and Red Molly (Jenny Magnus), union folk at a time when unions were something wonderful and idealistic. Knowing the power Red Molly commands among the German immigrants, Field and McCormick send out their goons in an all-out effort to find and silence her.
The whole piece is done as poor man’s theater, in the cabaret style of Brecht’s Berlin. The stage is essentially bare, lit only by work lights that the actors manipulate. The show is complete with piano player, bittersweet songs, a narrator, and scene titles. It is a type of theater that thrives on poverty, and in poverty and simplicity lies its strength.
