3 Shan news

Today my son wept and we were shaken by the death of Pratchett. We have loved and admired him since his first books. Only just this last week I read his non-fiction anthology and he gave me yet another gift. For I sometimes question the value of my Mabinogi work, important though it is to British and Welsh literature, and a key component of our hertage: the first … Not least my lady Rhiannon orders me.

But so much of my life has been about campaigning, fighting for freedom. Measured against that, the Mabinogi stories can seem frivolous, at least as a major life project. But TP writes eloquently on how fantasy is the seedbed of intelligence, so my uneasy conscience is satisfied. I also remember what I myself told him when I met him, which is so very relevant to the issue.

When I met Terry over 20 years ago I was keen to compliment his unique talent as a writer. So I told him how the only thing which got my beloved husband through the agony of supporting my awful miscarriage, was reading Pratchett by my bed. It kept him sane, and even in that gory time, it made him laugh. I was too preoccupied to share it as we so often did, but I was glad for him and very thankful to TP in a new way.

By the time I recounted this tale to Terry we two had recovered from the worst of the experience so I completely underestimated what a harsh tale it was. Terry’s face went slack with shock, and I saw how very gentle and human he was. Many years later now just, he was to write in a book of his non fiction, that he grew used to people telling him the awful situations his books helped them survive. But way back then, he was far from used to it.
Wee some would read Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Buddha or Robin Morgan to hold on in the crux of pain. My man chose Pratchett and that was right too.

We met Terry because I had invited him as a speaker to my annual Pagan Halloween Festival in London, about 1991. My husband and I were both passionate admirers of his, and neither wanted to miss his talk. But one of us had to stay on duty to organise the festival. I gracefully conceded as I felt my beloved was just a bit more of a devotee. But I conceded only on condition my man filmed Terry’s talk for me to see later.
Well he tried. But within five minutes everyone was laughing so much it was almost impossible to hear much that Terry said. My beloved said he himself also went into serious acute gut pain from non-stop laughter. The worst was when half way through he needed to change the video tape, but he simply couldn’t because he was laughing paralytically and still in pain, sliding on to the floor.
So I never did see more than fragments of this lovely man talking at my own festival.

One thing I have noticed is that those speaking about Terry overlook an important aspect of his mind. They tell of his mighty imagination, his wit, his wonderful silliness, his courage in his long illness, generosity in funding research into that illness, and his warrior fight for the right to die by choice. All very true, There is also a book of Philosophy and Pratchett just come out last December. I think he was also a very kind man, a good, strong family male. All true, good stuff.

But what is being overlooked is Pratchett’s astute political grasp of society. He wanted us to look at the dirty side, and do something about it. Let’s hope the coming year is a good memorial to him.

“The Royal Bed” Theatr Pena Feb – Mar 2015.
At all major arts centres and theatres across Wales.
TOUR DATES HERE
see locations list at the bottom of this page.

Siwan, wife to Llywelyn Fawr, Llewelyn the Great, was a pivotal historical figure. Her passionate, intelligent, and highly politicised life offers a thought provoking drama. The play was first staged via Saunders Lewis’ Welsh script in 1956. It now benefits from a sensitive new English language version by Sion Eirian, directed by Erica Eirian of Theatr Pena.

Theatr Pena, already famed for their innovative productions, especially on gender issues, have taken their expertise into Mediaeval Wales with great success.

The play compares to ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ in its ferocious couple dynamics. But this couple was the ruling power unit of Gwynedd and Wales. Unlike a modern urban marriage, their personal storm ravages the lands of Wales and England, driving thousands into bitter war. It is already being remarked that Theatr Pena’s interpretation makes the politics of the time far clearer than the original version. This is essential to the character of Siwan, who was not just an unfaithful wife: she was a formidable stateswoman.

The performance takes place in an austere but evocative set. A few well chosen furnishings, a brass worked chest, a carved chair with wolfskin, paint the richness of mediaeval castle life. Skilful lighting evokes the candlelit chambers where passions explode. The bed itself shapechanges as in traditional myths into Llywelyn’s war desk, symbolically apt to its political sexuality. One aspect I much enjoyed was the players’ active use of body positions, upright, seated, half lying, lying, and splayed out on bed or floor. This geometry embodied the gamut of dignified masking and gut deep emotion the plot demands.

In a similar symbolic to the bed/ desk symmetry, Siwan and Llywelyn both assume and discard elaborate costumes which represent their royal dominance in diplomacy and war. Each then reveals the humanity beneath in softer fabrics which mould to their vulnerable bodies. Siwan’s lover also appears in peacock fashion, then casts aside his court coat to become a young man in love, seeking kisses and laughter.

As Siwan, Eiry Thomas gives a wrenching performance, a complex range from playful dancing lover to agonised bereavement, never escaping her position as royal chess mistress of several nations. The play sympathises with her arranged marriage and late life discovery of love. Russell Gomer as Llywelyn demonstrates a suitable gravitas, with leashed passion. My one reservation is I cannot agree with Saunders Lewis’ script making this ruthless warlord so profoundly motivated by romance; for one, his political trajectory was well established before he ever met his much younger wife.

The young lover Gwilym Brewys (Francois Pandolfo) is both brave and adorable, glinting with a joy in love and life so cruelly extinguished at his dawn execution. An important part is played by Siwan’s maid (Hannah O’Leary) who mediates that violence off stage in the classical Greek tradition, so unlike the crude gore of today’s media. She emerges as a young woman of much character, widowed by her soldier husband, extending our grasp of the devastation of war across all who lived in Siwan and Llywelyn’s world. Two musicians deserve note for their powerful music, by voice and harp: Buddug Verona James and Delyth Jenkins.

Honour was the essence of noble mediaeval life, as the famous Mabinogi taught in its stories, and as the court bards declaimed in praise poetry. It was more important than life itself. The play bears out very accurately how it was not Llywelyn’s execution of his rival which was his great mistake. It was his barbarism in subjecting a noble lord to a common felon’s hanging rope, and making it a public spectacle for the crowd. Theatr Pena ensure we can understand this crucial issue of another time, while holding us enthralled by the same human passions which are part of our lives today.

To bridge the mediaeval and the modern as Theatr Pena has done, is no mean feat, deserving of our applause.

PERFORMANCE LOCATIONS (in touring order):
Newport / Casnewydd, The Riverfront / Glan yr Afon.
Milford Haven / Aberdaugleddau, Torch Theatre / Theatr y Torch.
Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth Arts Centre / Canolfan y Celfyddydau Aberystwyth.
Blackwood / Coed Duon, Blackwood Miners Institute / Sefydliad y Glowyr.
Newtown / Y Drenewydd, Hafren.
Abergavenny / Y Fenni, The Borough / Theatr Y Bwrdeistref.
Pontardawe, Pontardawe Arts Centre / Canolfan Celfyddydau Pontardawe.
Denbigh / Dinbych, Theatr Twm o’r Nant.
Cardigan / Aberteifi, Theatr Mwldan.
Church Village / Pentre’r Eglwys, Theatr Gartholwg Theatre.
Builth Wells / Llanfair ym Muallt, Wyeside Arts Centre / Canolfan Gelfyddydau Wyeside.
Caernarfon, Galeri.
Abertillery, Metropole.
Carmarthen / Caerfyrddin, The Lyric / Y Lyric.
Brecon / Aberhonddu, Theatr Brycheiniog.
Llandovery / Llanymyddyfri, Llandovery College / Coleg Llanymyddyfri.
Swansea / Abertawe, Taliesin Arts Centre / Canolfan y Celfyddydau Taliesin.
Felinfach, Theatr Felinfach

12 people have been murdered in France by terrorists: most of the dead are journalists, a couple of them bodyguards. The killers were enacting an extreme religious hatred against freedom of speech.
The Daily Mail said:

For millions around the world, the first reaction to the horrific news from Paris can only have been profound shock.
Shock that such a thing could happen in a modern, civilised European capital. Shock at the cold-blooded ruthlessness of the killings. Shock at the medieval motive for the murders.

The tag ‘mediaeval’ implies it was especially characteristic of the Middle Ages for bully boys to attack a group of unarmed people and murder them. motivated by religion. Yet Nazism fostered just this action in the 20thC, and I could find examples in almost any century quite easily. Nor do I think the examples would be more frequent in the mediaeval period.

There were plenty of violent raids which happened with considerable frequency in the Middle Ages, in Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland, across Europe. Many were not so violent, more like bar brawls on a Saturday night in a country town today. Often the motive was theft of cows or horses or pigs. But some were very violent, including rape, killing and torture. Not many though were motivated by religion. The more aggressive Vikings did seem to target monasteries, but they were probably focused on the rich pickings of gold and treasure in the (undefended) churches.

The tag “mediaeval” is unjustified, and it is used far too often to mean uncivilised, brutal, inferior, as is Neanderthal with even less eveidence to support the usage.

But I cannot just comment here on the French murders without stating my opinion on the event. That would be dishonest. In 2006 when the cartoons of a naked Mohammed appeared by a Western Danish cartoonist, reproduced by the French editor who has just died for it, I said it was wrong. It was stupid, nasty, crass and immature to publish such pictures.
I would say the same of publishing naked cartoon pictures of the Pope, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, the UK Queen, any President of any country, or indeed any public figure. Some of those people are to me, rubbish; in my eyes they do more harm than good in society.. I’m allowed to discrimate in who I respect and who I do not. That doesn’t give me the right to inflame their devotees because the result could be innocent people getting hurt. Behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace is illegal in the UK, and rightly so. Deliberately insulting a beloved leader is likely to lead to breaches of the peace. We can say we detest what they represent, what they teach, what they have done. We could show them perhaps in a silly costume like a clown. But nakedness is peculiarly demeaning is displayed in public in a hostile way.

But behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace is punished by fines or a short prison sentence. Not death.

The killers in this case were far more deeply wrong. There is rightly an upwelling of grief and anger and fear at what they did. Massive candlelit vigils are taking place. The perpetrators should pay the price to the full extent of the law.

The outrage I have seen expressed is about the attack on ‘democracy;’ on ‘freedom of speech.’ Rightly so. Other news offices in France have offered free desk space to the remaining staff of the victim magazine, so they can continue publishing. Bless them for that.
Suzanne Moore on the Guardian calls for the killers to be pilloried, humiliated by humour. Many public comments are calling for Western newspapers and media to combine in solidarity, to all together publish the offending cartoons. A symbolic war using humour.

That is unwise. It will trigger more angry immature young people to pick up guns and bombs. We cannot place a ring of high security around all our centres of news media. If we do that, the killers have won.

Instead, concede the cartoons were bad, stupid, wrong – though not illegal and should not be. But something far more important ha snot been said anywhere. This was an attack by armed men on defenceless unarmed men and women. THAT is the atrocity here.

We need to condemn that, utterly, and it has nothing to do with religion or any other ‘reason.’ The same thing has been wrong when Western soldiers kill civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria.

I want to see COWARDS in the biggest capital letters possible on the front oages pf our news – everywhere. Also when any other people do the same.

Christine and I finally managed to tame the bureaucracy and get my candidature for the humble MA Res. confirmed. Well not so much taming it as waking it up and making it do its duty.

Ah well all’s well.