The Orange Light

On Monday, I went to see the production of “The Orange Light.” I expected the play to just be a reenactment of the fire at the Imperial Foods processing plant in North Carolina, but it included so much more. I especially liked how the play paused at various moments throughout the performance, and many of the characters were able to speak about how the fire affected them personally. This really allowed me to empathize with the story and the characters themselves and it evoked a range of emotions from me over the course of the performance. At the beginning of the play, it made me angry to see how the owner, Bob, was treating the women at the factory. He gave them no respect and treated them as though they were his slaves. He even refused to give one of the women a day off when her son completed basic training. It was disheartening to learn that even in 1991, both women and people of color, were still not being treated with respect. It also disgusted me to see that Bob sexualized one of the women by constantly staring at her butt and treating her like a piece of meat. A friend of mine had a similar experience this past summer at the restaurant she worked at. Her boss never touched her, but she felt as though he was always looking at her in a certain way. It is absolutely crazy that this is still a problem in 2017. My friend was fortunate enough to be able to quit her restaurant job and find a new one almost immediately. However in the play, the workers were not able to quit because they needed the money that their job provided. As a result, they had to put up with Bob’s horrible treatment and continue to work tireless hours everyday. Bob’s relentless attitude was what caused the fire to occur at the Imperial Foods processing plant. In 11 years of operation, the plant had never received a safety inspection. Investigators believe a safety inspection might have prevented the disaster. The workers could not escape from the fire because Bob locked them in to prevent them from “stealing chicken.”