I am blessed to live in an area, that though rural, has an incredible amount of community theater.
I saw a production of a musical called Working last night. The musical is adapted from the book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, and is more a series of vignettes where characters discuss their working lives, and has some brilliant segues between different points of view.
While I enjoyed it, one scene kinda hit me between the eyes. It’s about a factory worker who makes luggage. As I was watching it, I ran my hands over a purse I bought at Wal-Mart many years ago because, well, it was cheap. I thought about all the interim steps to get that purse made, packaged, shipped to my local Wal-Mart, stocked, then checked out when I bought it. I thought about how many of those purses the person needed to make an hour to earn her (it was probably a woman, after all) wage.
The point of the musical and it’s an important one, is that every single thing you own, every product you use, every service you need, has a real, live human being doing that work. That’s an important point.
Go see the musical. It’s not just a Heavy Message. Parts will make you laugh.
March 1,2,8,9,14,15,16 at 7:00 PM
March 3,10,17 at 2:00 PM
at the Briggs Opera House, White River Junction, VT