A MEMORY OF TWO MONDAYS
NORTHEAST CORRECTIONAL CENTER (NECC)
BOWLING GREEN, MO
FEBRUARY 2020
PLOT SUMMARY
A MEMORY OF TWO MONDAYS is a one-act play by Arthur Miller. Based on Miller's own experiences, the play focuses on a group of desperate workers earning their livings in a Brooklyn automobile parts warehouse during the Great Depression in the 1930s, a time of 25% unemployment in the United States. Bert is the perky, optimistic young fellow who only works at the Brooklyn auto part warehouse until he can save enough money to enroll in college. Bert (Miller’s alter ego) knows he’ll escape the trap of living in hopelessness and the despondency of being trapped eking out a living shipping auto parts. Miller’s slice of working life drama is filled with lost souls trapped into the monotonous motions of meaningless work.
During the talkback at the Northeast Correctional Center, one of our longtime donors told the cast that he is a former engineer, and that the show had been so realistic that he could almost smell the actual smell of a mechanical workshop. He felt like he was there again.
A group of incarcerated were sitting behind him, and one piped up, "Sir, that could be me you smell. We just came from our automotive class." The whole audience erupted in laughter.
The photographer captured that moment in this picture.
Photo Credit: Shawgo Studios / Route 3 Films