Rhodri Meilir and Sara Gregory in Odyssey ‘84
What does it mean to be a part of a Welsh community? What shapes Wales’ contemporary identity? These are the questions that lie at the heart of Sherman Theatre’s newest production, Odyssey ‘84, which revisits the Miners’ Strike of 1984 through the lens of Homer’s Greek classic The Odyssey.
Penned by Tim Price, one of Wales’ most successful playwrights (following the meteoric success of Nye), the play commemorates 40 years since the strike, paying homage to the lives and communities irrevocably transformed by this explosive chapter of Welsh history. Directed by Joe Murphy, kitchen-table tales of struggle and desperation are thrust into the spotlight; depicting small-town communities on the brink of poverty amidst failing strike efforts and crises of faith amongst workers. However, the characters’ journeys simultaneously parallel Homeric feats of epic resistance and endurance, elevating their plight to a heroic dimension. The daily lives of ‘normal’ working-class people living through this historical event are revealed to be quite exceptional in many ways.
Rhodri Meilir, François Pandolfo, Matthew Bulgo, Dean Rehman, Sion Pritchard
Myth is interwoven with history to produce a kind of ‘mythstory’; Price plays with a surrealistic allusive universe in which Scargill and Thatcher stand in for Homer’s god and monsters. Miner John O’Donnell’s (Rhodri Meilir) ‘return journey’ back to South Wales after international fundraising efforts for the NUM equates to Odysseus’ 10-year trail back to Ithaca following the Trojan war. Accompanied by fellow strikers Billy Lewis (Sion Pritchard) and Dai Morgan (Dean Rehman), the trio are braided together within a seismic quest across faraway lands, soundtracked to a fun but occasionally heavy-handed playlist of New Order, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys and Kate Bush.
Dean Rehman, Rhodri Meilir, Sion Pritchard
John is the walking embodiment of Welshness; awkward, gruff, blunt – but not imposing; he embodies a fundamentally loveable revolutionary underdog who never forgets to say ‘thank you’ and makes us laugh with his ‘oh-that’s-very-kind-of-you’ polite refusal of violent insurrection and guns. ‘We are in the fight of our lives’, John beseeches in his climactic fundraising monologue – a heartfelt existential questioning of a miner’s life and purpose.
Caught up in the emotional epic of their excursions, the men leave behind their dutiful, even passive wives and families. John’s wife Penny (Sara Gregory) unfaltering supports her community at the food bank; pregnant in poverty, life for Penny is as tough as the brutalist backdrop of industrial cement squares behind her as part of Carl Davies’ design. Confined to domestic desperation and seemingly always folding laundry, Penny’s character risks playing into a World War II Rosie the Riveter stereotype of ‘girls-on-the-home-front’ – a tired trope that only swerves out the way just in time for the end. Penny’s closing monologue hammers home the direct effect of the political on the personal as she vehemently stresses ‘We are not a prize for bravery’. The emotional epicentre of the play, it is clear that Penny’s character was written by someone who was raised in awe of Welsh women.
Sara Gregory and Lisa Zahra
Some scenes have a tendency to drag, such as John’s journey through ‘the underworld’, and the constant flittering between moments of swearing and stage violence with broad simplistic comedy mainly offers comedic relief but does sometimes fall flatly into anticlimax. The Nutscracker-esque cameos from the supporting international associations such as Lesbians and Gay Support The Miners, The Australian Miners’ Federation and the Libyan Revolutionaries (Colonel Gaddafi, no less) amongst many more, spotlight the international moral and financial assistance received. Still, they risk being tokenistically categorised as ‘other’ – their cultures fall short of being represented as anything more than ‘not Welsh’.
Most stimulating is the play’s ‘meta’ engagement with the audience. The play depicts a stage within a stage at various occasions in the narrative, such as at the end when John joins the audience as a fellow spectator of a revolutionary symposium, (commanded by the chameleonic Lisa Zahra) which directly calls upon us to rise against the capitalist machine.
Ensemble
The threads of Greek reference run smoothly from beginning to end, most significantly the play’s representation of ‘Xenia’ – the ancient Greek concept of hospitality and relationships. The ending is faithful to history; Odyssey ‘84 reanimates the tragic fall of the miners as the strike falls apart – but is more concerned with depicting the people of Wales being there for each other. The miner’s ethos of ‘solidarity forever’ echoes the way individuals in the communities help each other in times of need. Swearing revolutionary allegiance or providing neighbours with toilet roll – the play’s moral apotheosis urges us to ‘Give without remembering and receive without forgetting’. The playtext has a life-affirming humanity that truly reflects Welsh identity; championing the muscular warmth of a nation that has forged a profound legacy of shared struggle and solidarity.
Odyssey ‘84 illustrates how the ancient dramatic form grasps the contemporary imagination with fervour; Homer’s ancient poem is seamlessly rendered into an emotionally vivid meditation on contemporary Welsh identity.
Words by Julia Bottoms
Photos by Mark Douet
