Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: New Jersey

Nickel and Dimed Visits Low Wage Service Employees
Theatre Project

Also see Bob's review of I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti


Bev Sheehan, center, with (clockwise from left) Sarah Brook Vanaman, Barbara Guidi, Gail Lou and Daaimah Talley
Nickel and Dimed, a piece of agit-prop theatre which premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 2002, has arrived in New Jersey and is now being performed by Maplewood's Theatre Project. It is based on the 2001 book, "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by muckraking journalist (and Ph.D. in biology) Barbara Ehrenreich which chronicles the three months in which she went undercover and worked as a minimally paid service worker to expose the terrible circumstances and working conditions of these workers, and to determine if she would be able to support herself with such employment.

The issues which Nickel and Dimed raises are even more relevant today than they were more than a dozen years ago as the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, and jobs and salaries lag behind the nation's economic recovery.

However, Holden piles on the misery and polemics so heavily that they cast a shadow on the credibility of the entire enterprise. Dramaturgy also suffers as the script substitutes a screed without any letup as she describes the misery and hardship of every worker, and the abusiveness of every employer and manager. It is beyond doubt that low paid, unskilled service workers are hard pressed financially and that some have to cope with difficult, unfair employers, but an honest, more varied and balanced portrayal of service workers would make her indictments more persuasive. About the only worker who is satisfied with his job (he has been promoted from his entry level job) is portrayed as a fool.

The first of three communities to which Ehrenreich travels is Key West, Florida, where she works as a waitress, and has to take a second job as a hotel maid in order to survive. Another waitress works two shifts at the restaurant and still works another job. A fellow maid eats a frankfurter roll for lunch. Family problems abound. The restaurant pays the staff the difference between their tips (which they share with the cooks) and the minimum wage. The manager makes the waitresses roll seventy-five napkins before their shifts. Workers can't afford to pay security deposits so they live in hotel rooms without kitchens or refrigerators. One cook is a drunk. One lives in a van. Customers are demanding and nasty. Hell breaks loose in the form of a large party of such customers who have not been served after a twenty minute wait. Ehrenreich is out of there and on her way to Portland, Maine. End of act one.

Although there are opportunities for humor in act one, director Mark Spina, who is a sure-handed comedy specialist, has chosen to allow the audience to share without mitigation the unbearable oppressiveness which Ehrenreich is feeling. It is not an easy pill to swallow, either, as theatre or polemic.

The second act finds Ehrenreich in the area of Portland, Maine, doing double duty working as part of a crew of maids for a "Magic Maids" franchiser and as a dietary aide (mostly cleaning and serving meals) in an elderly care residential facility. Act three finds Ehrenreich suffering "repetitive humiliation" in an evil "Mall-Mart" in Minneapolis (where none of the workers can afford a local apartment in this prospering city), and getting a rent-free apartment in exchange for taking care of the owner's pet cockatoo.

Bev Sheehan plays Barbara Ehrenreich with a verve and likeability that exceeds that of the playwright's drawing of her. The other five cast members play a couple of dozen other roles. Daaimah Talley makes a strong first impression as Philip, an overly serious, in over his head restaurant manager. Sarah Brooke Vanaman stands out as Hector, the restaurant's alcoholic cook who pathetically comes on sexually to the female employees. Gail Lou captures the weariness of more than one bone-tired older woman. Barbara Guidi wins our sympathy as a born again Christian who is putting her life back together. Gary Glor, the lone male cast member, gives richly varied performances, employing any number of accents in the process.

Overall, Nickel and Dimed has a feminist bent as low job level women are repeatedly exploited, harassed and lied to by men who often are one step above them on the job ladder. Tally and Lou get to punctuate the show with a cappella renditions of vintage songs such as "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime", "Ten Cents a Dance" and "Million Dollar Baby."

The basic flaw in Holden's adaptation is that it is primarily about Barbara Ehrenreich and her attitude about being a minimally paid female service industry worker worker rather than being about such actual workers. Big surprise—a 59-year-old Ph.D. who is a successful professional writer finds it degrading to be tested for drug use, to be asked simplistic questions on job applications which she can easily game, to perform (repetitive) worker tasks, to clean bathrooms and the incontinent elderly, to be given canned pep talks by less educated supervisors, and to be asked to feel part of a team in a miserable "Mall-Mart" job. Ehrenreich comes off as an exploitative, snobby writer who is as much exploiting as trying to help unfortunates to whom she feels superior.

Is it possible not to wonder why she had to lie to these people to inveigle herself into their lives rather than approach them on a one to one basis, identify herself as an investigative reporter and interview them as she would a person in her own world? Heretofore, Ehrenreich's work has not come to my attention, so what I am saying is based solely on the Ehrenreich that Holden has given us.

Some of the most interesting moments of the play occur in the latter acts when the actors break the fourth wall and talk directly to the audience. They ask us if we are exploitative and hire or would hire service workers to clean our homes and how much would we be willing to pay them.

Then this agit-prop theater piece quotes Barbara Ehrenreich as she makes some provocative statements about the exploitation of the working class. For example, during an interview, she states "Our lives are subsidized by the working poor. They are the biggest anonymous donors." If you are pounding the table and nodding yes as you consider that quotation, you are a candidate to overlook Nickel and Dimed's faults and find it to be an on-target rouser.

Nickel and Dimed continues performances (Eves: Thursday - Saturday 8 pm/ Sunday 2 pm) through April 6, 2014, at the Theater Project at the Burgdorff Center for the Performing Arts, 10 Durand Road, Maplewood, NJ 07040. Box Office: 908-809-8865; online: www.TheTheaterProject.org.

Nickel and Dimed A play by Joan Holden based on the book by Barbara Ehrenreich; directed by Mark Spina

Cast
Barbara……………………………Bev Sheehan
Gail, others…………………………….Gail Lou
Joan, Melissa, others………..........Barbara Guidi
Boyfriend, George, others……………Gary Glor
Philip, Marge, others……………Daaimah Talley
Hector, Holly, others…...Sarah Brooke Vanaman


Photo: Mary Iannelli


- Bob Rendell