Forty years after the monumental 1984 miners’ strike that forever changed the landscape of labor in the UK, a daring new play by Tim Price audaciously intertwines this defining moment with the mythic might of Homer’s Odyssey. Aptly titled Odyssey ’84, this ambitious drama charts the epic journey of Welsh miner John O’Donnell, a modern-day Odysseus navigating the treacherous waters of unseen authorities and faraway lands in his quest to return home.
At the heart of this Homeric homage beats the resolute Penny, John’s devoted wife, patiently awaiting her husband’s homecoming. Embodied by the exceptional Sara Gregory, Penny emerges as the emotional linchpin of the production. Her tender exchanges with confidante Shaz, portrayed with deft nuance by Lisa Zahra, shed poignant light on the oft-overlooked women who steadfastly sustained their communities amidst the strike’s upheaval.
While the men embark on their mythic exploits, punctuated by rousing orations, it is the women who shoulder the weightiest dramatic burdens. An outstanding ensemble, featuring Sion Pritchard, Matthew Bulgo, and François Pandolfo, imbues even the most minor roles with gravitas. Set against Carl Davies’ imposing, progressively claustrophobic coal seam backdrop, evocatively illuminated by Rachel Mortimer, the play’s conceptual ambition proves admirably far-reaching.
An Oversimplified Epic?
Yet, for all its Homeric heights, Joe Murphy’s production occasionally stumbles in its apparent apprehension of nuance, seemingly hesitant to entrust the audience with the intricacies of subtext. Motivations and sentiments are signposted with a heavy hand, diluting dramatic tension. Curiously, scene transitions are punctuated by period pop songs, their lyrics redundantly reinforcing the already manifest action, as if doubtful of the viewer’s comprehension.
While the play’s comedic flourishes offer welcome respite, they too often veer into the realm of the overly broad. Most puzzling, however, is the decision to retrofit the wrenching individual and collective traumas of this socioeconomic catastrophe into the archetypal arcs of an epic poem. In distilling the hardships endured by hundreds of thousands into a single fictional family, rendered in sometimes inexplicably sweeping strokes, the play risks relegating the more compelling human drama to the annals of myth.
Conclusion: A Valiant Voyage
Despite occasional navigational missteps, Odyssey ’84 emerges as a valiant voyage into the tempestuous seas of mythology and history. Price’s audacious vision and Murphy’s intrepid direction, coupled with a stellar crew of performers, steer this epic undertaking towards affecting, if imperfect, shores. As the production weathers the crags of Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre through October 26th, audiences will find themselves inexorably drawn into the siren song of a defining moment in UK history, even as they ponder the perils of charting such momentous events through the prism of the mythic.
You can’t help but feel that in elevating a socioeconomic catastrophe to the status of a myth, especially when it is drawn in inexplicably broad strokes, the play risks making a more interesting human drama recede into history.
In the final analysis, Odyssey ’84 stands as a testament to the enduring power of theatre to excavate the mythic from the mundane, to hold a mirror to our shared histories, and to chart a course towards understanding, even amidst the most turbulent of tides. While its reach may at times exceed its grasp, this Odyssean effort nonetheless merits applause for its sheer audacity of ambition and the heights of pathos it intermittently achieves.
