In early 2013 I discovered this mad, frightening, difficult-to-read and difficult-to-stomach book, on a search for inspiration for a new work. I wasn’t prepared for what I found.
Caradoc Evans’ My People.
If you know it, it might not seem the most likely starting point for a dance work but you couldn’t be more wrong. Not only did it have the most powerful affect on me as an artist, it was the first time I became aware of the potential of, and what strength Anglo-Welsh writing had, particularly as an English speaking Welshman. The visceral reaction I had to the book’s visually rich but heart-breaking content compelled me to pursue a work based on these stories. The living, breathing physicality of his words made complete sense in a dance context.
Evans wrote My People in 1915 and he was considered to be the “best hated man in Wales” for it. The book, a collection of 15 short-stories divided opinion and caused outrage across Wales. Attempts were made to ban the book and his portrait was slashed in the National Gallery. His work was compared to that of James Joyce and was applauded across literary circles. He is considered to be the father of Welsh writing in English and it is reputed that he influenced Dylan Thomas’s early writing. Shamefully his work has all but been forgotten from the mainstream (even in Wales), with few reprints of his work for thirty years until last year.
Evans paints a disturbing picture of a troubled community, bound in the fictional village of Manteg, where no one escapes his heavy satirical stroke. The stories of the non-conformist chapel community are told through the tricky use of transliterated English from Welsh and old-testament speech.
It’s not a book that you can read just once. It took me several goes to just master the language. On what was probably my third time reading it, certain characters and their stories began to appear much more vividly, perhaps because of their physical bondage or captivity but it was the unsaid emotional turmoil suffered by the characters, both at the hands of other characters and of Evans himself, that really grasped me.
Eventually, I focused on and played around with the key character threads of seven of the 15 stories, with five wonderful dancers we delved into the world of the text. I must caveat here – constraints of budget and time demanded a focus to the work that wouldn’t allow us to recreate all 15 stories. Not that I would recreate the stories anyway, I do believe that the length and concise nature of the final work replicates the succinct and abruptness of the stories.
Two of the characters I chose to focus on were Achsah, in A Father in Sion. A (believed to be) madwoman, driven out in the field by her husband in a cow’s harness, only to discover that all but two of her eight children are dead, and Dinah who in the The Devil in Eden is tempted by Michael a tramp man, on realising he is St. Michael she sends him to purgatory. Both these stories have strong imagery and demonstrate the struggle that women in this world had, albeit with different outcomes. Dinah is the only female protagonist that comes off best. Manteg society was very tough. Sexual and gender politics are played out as a means to an end for the men, and the chapel hierarchy (which was supposedly non-existent) gives those at the top, power, money, greed and lust, which they abuse to full effect and disregard to anyone else. (Say what, in a hundred years, things don’t seem to have changed much besides faces and institutions.)
Before embarking on the project, I felt there was a danger of relying on religious symbolism and the choice of highlighting the chapel ministers. Abstracting it from the original setting, Evans was identifying the inner machinations of people in a general sense, people who are driven by status and stupidity. The chapel as a community was merely the vehicle in which he could layout his philosophies. It is a book about people and therefore I felt it necessary to focus on human interaction rather than the superficies of chapel life.
Evans created a world on the page, a whole community that exists across all 15 stories. Sound has this wonderful ability to encapsulate and complete a world on stage so I approached Benjamin Talbott and Tic Ashfield, both recent composition graduates of RWCMD. They had been working on BBC Wales’ noir drama Hinterland, and if you have seen this you will understand how this experience lends itself perfectly to setting the work in the dark place that the book demands. I brought in lighting designer Aideen Malone who has designed for Akram Khan and Bristol Old Vic, amongst others. Having spent so much time working with Aideen, touring non-stop for two years together. I knew that Aideen would understand the depths of darkness/light needed to replicate the world and I also wanted to explore how we could create a sense of geography of a village/community on stage. We needed to maintain a sense of clearly identifiable narratives within a single place. Neil Davies the costume designer who works intuitively, spent a lot of time watching, listening and gathering thoughts of the performers as we built the characters. He created a design for each performer that is part of the collective whole.
We worked together for seven weeks in Aberystwyth, at the Arts Centre where I am very proud to be considered an associate artist and who supported the production so incredibly. Being in Aberystwyth, I found my making ‘home’. I am not sure how much influence being so close to the actual world of Caradoc Evans had on the making of the work but it certainly reinforced how honoured I felt to be using his work to create my own, first, work in Wales.
It was only last year when I was approached by Dinah Jones, a TV producer that I realized the significance of the timing of the work, in that, it coincides with the centenary of the book. Dinah is making a documentary for it and I was asked to contribute to the programme, which will hopefully be aired on S4C in the spring. There will also be a series of talks, events and programmes taking place throughout the year.
Even though Evans was considered to be “the best hated man in Wales” he was a trail-blazer. He was a questioner. An artist. Pioneer. He was someone who was brave enough to question the establishment in which he grew up. He challenged and questioned the status quo in the most damning way. Art like this has the power to hold society to task. We must celebrate, honour and recreate this. Now couldn’t feel like a more important time. I am learning how to do this with my own work from those who have gone before me and I have learnt a lot from Mr Evans.
Ebrill 7 & 8 April 2015
ALRA theatre, Llundain/London
(https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/event/79149)
Ebrill 10 April 2015
Taliesin, Abertawe/Swansea
(http://www.taliesinartscentre.co.uk/performances.php?id=1025)
Ebrill 29 April 2015
Theatr y Fwrdeistref Y Fenni / Borough Theatre, Abergavenny
(http://www.boroughtheatreabergavenny.co.uk/event.php?eid=1118)
Ebrill 30 April 2015
Glan yr Afon / The Riverfront, Casnewydd/Newport
(https://nccsec.newport.gov.uk/tickets/en-GB/shows/my%20people-%20gwyn%20emberton%20dance/info)