Nickel and Dimed
Can a middle-aged, middle-class woman survive, when she suddenly has to make beds all day in a hotel and live on $7 an hour? Maybe. But one $7-an-hour job won’t pay the rent: she’ll have to do back-to-back shifts, as a chambermaid and a waitress. This isn’t the first surprise for acclaimed author Barbara, who set out to research low-wage life firsthand, confident she was prepared for the worst. Barbara Ehrenreich’s best-seller about her odyssey is vivid and witty, yet always deeply sobering....
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Can a middle-aged, middle-class woman survive, when she suddenly has to make beds all day in a hotel and live on $7 an hour? Maybe. But one $7-an-hour job won t pay the rent: she ll have to do back-to-back shifts, as a chambermaid and a waitress. This isn t the first surprise for acclaimed author Barbara, who set out to research low-wage life firsthand, confident she was prepared for the worst. Barbara Ehrenreich s best-seller about her odyssey is vivid and witty, yet always deeply sobering. Joan Holden s stage adaptation is a focused comic epic shadowed with tragedy. Barbara is prepared for hard work but not, at 55, for double shifts and nonstop aches and pains; for having to share tiny rooms, live on fast food because she has no place to cook, beg from food pantries, gulp handfuls of Ibuprofen because she can t afford a doctor; for failing, after all that, to make ends meet; or for constantly having to swallow humiliation. The worst, she learns, is not what happens to the back or the knees: it s the damage to the heart. The bright glimpses of Barbara s co-workers that enliven the book become indelible portraits: Gail, the star waitress pushing fifty who can no longer outrun her troubles; Carlie, the hotel maid whose rage has burned down to disgust; Pete, the nursing home cook who retreats into fantasy; Holly, terrified her pregnancy will end her job as Team Leader at Magic Maids, and with it her 50-cent raise. These characters wage their life struggles with a gallantry that humbles Barbara, and the audience. The play shows us the life a third of working Americans now lead, and makes us angry that anyone should have to live it.Philadelphia InquirerInvolving, important and urgently topical.
\ L.A. TimesDaring...attacks the privileges of 90% of the people who will see it...Ehrenreich's irrepressible sense of humor admirably translated from page to stage.\ \ \ \ \ Philadelphia InquirerInvolving, important and urgently topical.\ \ \ San Francisco ChroniclePenetrating clarity and sharp, illuminating humor...succeeds beautifully in creating the wearying reality of dead-end jobs and the people trapped in them.\ \ \ \ \ TimeA rare example of theater that tries to open people's eyes to the way life is lived in the real world—and maybe even rouse them to action.\ \ \ \ \ Variety...undeniably provocative...One can't see this stage version without questioning an economy in which poor people subsidize the lifestyle of the middle and upper classes.\ \
