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Nickel and Dimed opens at the Guthrie Lab
by Marianne Combs, Minnesota Public Radio
August 15, 2003

Robynn Rodriguez plays the role of Barbara in "Nickel and Dimed," the story of journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's undercover research into the lives and jobs of the working poor. (Photo by Michal Daniel)

A new play at the Guthrie Lab offers bleak insight into the lives of Minnesotans who are struggling to survive. The play is based on a work of non-fiction. Barbara Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed documents the lives of the working poor in America, as seen through the eyes of a middle-class undercover journalist. For her research Ehrenreich worked low-income jobs and tried to make ends meet in three states - Florida, Maine and Minnesota. This is the first time the play is being staged in one of the cities where Ehrenreich did her research.

Minneapolis, Minn. — When Barbara Ehrenreich first heard playwright Joan Holden was interested in turning her book into a play, Ehrenreich thought "Impossible! It won't work."

So she said, "Go ahead."

	Undercover as a waitress

Ehrenreich was surprised, then delighted, to see the results. She stresses the play is a work of fiction loosely based on her non-fiction book. But still she says the play drives her own point home.

"I think there's too much of a tendency among the affluent to not see all the people who are making their lives possible," says Ehrenreich. "They just shut it out. So I want people to notice the effort and sometimes the pain that goes into making their world comfortable and convenient." The Guthrie Lab is the third theater to stage Nickel and Dimed, but several other theaters across the country are picking it up this year. Director Bill Rauch comes to Minneapolis from Los Angeles, where he runs a theater company dedicated to producing plays with and for low-income communities.

Rauch says the appeal of Nickel and Dimed stems from its ability to look at the lives of the working poor through the eyes of someone from the middle class.

	Robynn Rodriguez as Barbara

"I think part of why it's becoming such a popular play around the country is that regional theater audiences, while not exclusively, tend to be middle to upper-middle class," says Rauch. "And there are actually several moments in the show that acknowledge and play with the gap between the average audience member and the low-wage workers on stage."

Rauch says directing this play in Minneapolis gives the production even more of an edge. He says the energy in the audience is palpable, particularly when the main character, undercover journalist Barbara, arrives in Minnesota. She has high hopes of ending her research on a positive note -- she thinks the "liberal" state of Minnesota will provide her with a nice paying job and cheap rent. Unfortunately, Barbara couldn't have been more wrong.

Kris Jacobs is the executive director of the JobsNow Coalition, an organization that advocates all Minnesotans should be able to earn enough from their jobs to support a family. Jacobs followed Barbara Ehrenreich's work for years, but never expected Ehrenreich to show up on her doorstep. And what Jacobs saw came as a shock.

"She was certainly deprived and when she walked in the door here. She didn't look like the nice pictures on the copy of the book," says Jacobs. "She was haggard, tired and she seemed bewildered by what she was finding here in Minneapolis."

	Life on low income

What Ehrenreich found was substandard housing and demeaning working conditions. Ehrenreich applied for a job as a store clerk at Wal-Mart. In the play, Wal-Mart is thinly disguised as Mall-Mart, a business where employees can be fired for talking about their pay. Barbara gets the job, but her wages aren't enough to cover the rent and the groceries.

According to JobsNow, she's not alone. This week the coalition released its latest report on the cost of living in Minnesota. Director Kris Jacobs says the report finds one-third of working Minnesotans aren't making enough to support an average family.

"We have people in poverty in Minnesota who make no noise," says Jacobs. "They don't look different than you and I. They go about their days putting one foot in front of the other and they don't really have time nor the inclination to complain. But that doesn't mean that they don't know what's happening to them, or that they don't wish for a better life."

In conjunction with the Guthrie's production of Nickel and Dimed, JobsNow is helping to lead post-performance discussions about the cost of living and the quality of jobs in Minnesota. The Guthrie is also making $2 tickets available to the working poor so that they can afford to see a play about their own lives.

Nickel and Dimed runs through Aug. 31 at the Guthrie Lab in Minneapolis.

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