Produced by a Welsh-led creative team, the premiere of Tachwedd (November/The Slaughter) will come to the London stage this October in co-production with Phoebe Stringer Productions and Theatre503. Jon Berry’s new play, set in Bethesda, North Wales, interlaces Welsh myth and history to reveal how four individuals’ decisions dramatically alter their futures. Set across four different eras spanning the pre-historic to the modern day, Tachwedd explores four generations of a family’s relationship with their land, as they shift between agricultural, industrial and contemporary ways of living. With rising tensions, the show charts a families’ journey as they try to reconcile the inescapability of the past with the weight of the future, from leaving home to returning to a place of regret. A son struggles under the weight of inheriting the family farm, a town suffers from mass layoffs and the landscape itself seems to tear apart. Unfurling the intricate relationship between history, land, and consequence, Tachwedd invites audiences to question the past, challenge the present, and bear witness to the forces that shape our collective destiny.
On bringing Welsh culture to an English audience, playwright Jon Berry said, “I’ve always wanted to tell epic stories. There’s something about the epic, the poetic play, that speaks to something bardic that runs through Welsh literary culture. Coming to 503 with the idea of a massive play exploring Welsh cultural and national identity, the myriad ways that history envelopes the present, I could hardly believe that they would take this germ of an idea and support it. Over the time that I’ve been writing this play I’ve been inspired by the Mabinogi, oral histories of Bethesda, the poetry of Anne Carson, Gwyn Williams’ When Was Wales, David Grieg’s plays, the disintegration tapes of William Basinski, honestly the list is huge. What was important for me was to try not to have any part of the play lean on a given aspect of Welsh culture – I’m aware of how easy it is to self-stereotype, to self-mythologise, that tendency even being part of the text itself. Avoiding that easy path, pushing my own and the audience’s concept of what it might mean to be Welsh, that was a central focus for me. Tachwedd for me is the culmination of many years of interrogation, of interacting and negotiating with a history that I am at once a part of and a minute force within. I’m excited to see how people respond to the work, and to hopefully continue the conversation of Welshness through theatre for today.”
Tachwedd was originally developed as part of Jon’s participation in the 503Five Writers’ Scheme at Theatre503, where he received a seed commission to develop it into a full-length play.
The Welsh cast is made up of Cardiff-born Carri Munn, an actor, writer, director and stand-up comedian known for Pobol Y Cwm (BBC Cymru) and Elen Benfelen/Goldilocks (Sherman Theatre) as well as Glyn Pritchard whose previous credits include The Duchess of Malfi and King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe) and The Dark Philosophers (National Theatre Wales). The cast is completed by recent Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama graduate Bedwyr Bowen known for Macbeth (National Theatre Wales) and Saran Morgan, whose theatre credits include Bara Bread and Inheriting Gods (Theatr Gwalia).
The show will be directed by Jac Ifan Moore, a founding member of PowderHouse, a dynamic company in residence at Sherman Theatre. Jac’s extensive portfolio includes Associate Director of The Corn Is Green at the National Theatre and Assistant Director of Apollo E Dafne for the Royal Opera House as well as collaborations on Antigone with PowderHouse, National Theatre Wales, Sherman Theatre and the BBC and For All I Care with National Theatre Wales.
