Chwalfa
Pontio, Bangor
4/5

CHWALFA is an incredibly strong Welsh word, almost onomatopoeic in nature. Its various definitions include dispersing, rout, upheaval, upset, a confused or chaotic state and ruin.

But within the word there is also the sense of a place where destruction occurs and this drama reflects all of that complexity of meaning.

Here the breaking point is at Penrhyn slate quarry near Bethesda in north Wales where from 1900 until 1903 the longest strike in British history took place. An entire community, locked out by the quarry owner, were split apart and driven to the four winds by his agents and the forces of the state.

The classic Welsh novel by T Rowland Hughes on the strike was first published in 1946 and dramatist Gareth Miles has now adapted the book for the stage. In it, he foregrounds the role of the landowners and underlines the deep cruelty of capitalism, inserting the actual icy words spoken by the perpetrators of this contrived lockout of workers to prove his point.

We see families and relationships shattered by the pressure exerted for men to return to work and quarrymen forced by poverty to sail away to foreign ports or seek work in the coalmines of the Rhondda.

But, as the characters are faced by their non-comprehension of other Welsh dialects and confronted by new industrial settings, there’s also humour in the darkness.

Miles’s adaptation highlights the timeless nature of a story now more than a century old, with echoes of today’s struggles in the accounts of blacklists, blacklegs, anti-trade union legislation, free market economics and forced economic migration.

Director Arwel Gruffydd, clearly inspired by the history of the working-class slate mining area of his own upbringing, is well served by a part-professional, part-community cast who integrate seamlessly in this busy production.

The Bethesda and Blaenau Ffestiniog working class did not appear heavily represented to hear their legends retold in the new Pontio centre in Bangor where I saw the production.

But the audience was clearly affected as they listened to the union leader calling off the dispute and announcing the return to work after three years of suffering: “Dear fellow workers — or maybe I should say, fellow traitors,” he declares.

Bitter words. But Miles is a skilled craftsman and conveys the message that the scattering of the people as the strike is smashed still speaks to us today, whether in Wales or beyond.

The act of destruction the play describes has cut, shaped and inspired the labour movement and as such it serves us in our current struggles.

Runs until February 27, box office: pontio.co.uk

Review by Meic Birtwistle