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The plays one woman Iphigenia in Splott it began to be held in 2015. Eleven years, Gary Owen is renewing the Greek problems, placing them in the Splott of the working groups in Cardiff, he found his place as a modern classic. It also imagines the mythological heroine Iphigenia as Effie, a girl who spends her days drinking vodka from a cup in her dress. The play is about poverty and social inequality, closures and cuts, services that are stripped to the bone by austerity. Its latest Guardian review of five stars in 2022 he advised: “Everyone will see this.”
One person who did this was Leisa Gwenllian, a final year drama student from the north Wales. “I was in the front with my husband or wife,” says Gwenllian, 24, while drinking tea in a London hotel. “I remember thinking: wow! A Welsh woman with a powerful Cardiff voice on the Lyric stage (in Hammersmith, London), that’s all.” At the Oxford School of Drama, Gwenllian mainly studied classics with people of a different language and culture than her own. “Seeing yourself on stage is very powerful.”
Four years later, he starred in the Welsh language film of the play, Effi from Blaenau. Funny, carefree and vulnerable, he gives one of those you’ve-seen-him-before successful practices. Even when Effi – the last “e” was removed from her name to make the film conform to the conventions of Welsh style – scolds nan for her patience, her honesty and open face make it impossible not to root for her. Then, when she becomes pregnant after a big night out in Llandudno, everything changes for Effi. The film is directed by Marc Evans, who co-wrote the script with Owen, shifting the location from Cardiff to Blaenau Ffestiniog, a former slate mining town in north-west Wales.
Calling the video, Owen says expectations weren’t high for Iphigenia in Splott on opening night and the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff in 2015: “They only put it on for two-and-a-half weeks and were worried it would sell tickets.” When he was writing this play, in 2014, he was living in Splott in a very difficult time. “We were told that we all had to be cut because we were all together.”
But looking around him in Splott, for people who rely on community centers and Flying Start (the Welsh version of the early years support scheme Sure Start) to solve it, it doesn’t feel like everyone feels the same: “It was clear that if you cut people’s services, the people who were most vulnerable, who are most dependent on those services, will find it very difficult.” Effie was inspired by her neighbors across the street, who lived in the shelters – “not always easy neighbours”, she says, smiling.
His experiences also entered the drama. After her second child was born, Owen’s friend went into labor early – just like Effie did. There was no bed in the intensive care unit in Cardiff, so calls were made to hospitals in Newport and Swansea. No one had beds. The nearest was in Abergavenny, an hour’s drive north, but there was snow and the road was often closed in bad weather. The child is now 13 years old. “But a few weeks after he was born, I was feeding him a bottle and there was still snow in the mountains.
The play he wrote in 2014 is still considered highly relevant – and continues to be developed. What does this say about the world we live in? Owen sighs. “Depression has become the norm. Jobs are shrinking and life is very difficult for many people. I don’t think things have gotten better, I think they have gotten worse.”
Iphigenia in Splott has been translated into French and Spanish. The idea for a Welsh language film came from producer Branwen Cennard at S4C, the free-to-air television channel for Welsh speakers. Making the film in Welsh with subtitles was out of the question, he says: “I wouldn’t have been happy any other way.”
Why the move from Cardiff, I ask Evans? “Blaenau is a Welsh town. If you want to learn more about working-class culture in the Welsh language, you have to go north. The town’s landscape, surrounded by huge hills, made by people of rubbish, is also a gift. “Blaenau is amazing, because you look around and it says ‘post-industrial’.”
Not that he wanted to direct the film, says Evans. His plan was to hire a female director, step back and take an executive producer credit. “I knew a lot about men’s looks.” What happened? “I don’t know, there seem to be female conductors here in Wales at the moment – in the Welsh language, though.” He paid for it by hiring female department heads and women in senior staff positions, including, controversially, cinematographer Eira Wyn Jones. “I knew there were some events that would affect the lens and Leisa, so I think that changed a little.”
When it comes to pitching, Evans decided he’ll have young players jumping around the block to watch. “The acting culture is very strong in Wales,” he says. (his last film, Mr. Burtontold the story of a young Richard Burton.) But there was less than he expected, which he thinks may have something to do with the shrinking pool of talent from disadvantaged backgrounds. He said: “Acting is difficult if you work or don’t have money to go to college.
Gwenllian grew up down the road from Blaenau Ffestiniog. “I don’t think I realized what my community was like until I moved. We spent months not speaking English at all, except on the phone. You can go to your local McDonald’s and order in Welsh. It’s very difficult.” In fact, at the age of 12, when a BBC casting director came to his choir looking for a girl to appear in the children’s show Rocket’s Island, he was terrified of rehearsing in English. “I remember telling my mother: “I don’t do that, because it’s English.
After Rocket’s Island, Gwenllian joined the troupe of the old Welsh language drama Rownd a Rownd: “I did that until I was 19.” The money she earned from acting paid her way to drama school: “It opened a lot of doors and opportunities that my mother wouldn’t have had.” When he tried for a place at the Oxford School of Drama, he had to read a passage from Iphigenia in Splott. “My acting teacher introduced me to the play when I was 15 or 16 years old. I really connected with it.”
It must have felt like a disaster when they heard that a film was being made at their home in North Wales, I’d say. To be honest, I was very nervous during the auditions. In retrospect, this may not have hindered his chances. “It was good Effi.”
His acting is the fun part of the film. He is in all situations – and the form that he is. They down industrial vodka, dance wildly in a nightclub, have sex, give birth and live in dire straits.
Does he have a way to get into the culture? “No. I don’t think there’s any secret formula. I read it a million times and thought a lot about her and the story. I just thought of her as a real person, because there are so many real Effis out there.” Getting into costume also helped: “As soon as I put on the stripes and the spectacles, I felt like Effi.”
