Jon Berry’s bleak historical drama Tachwedd/The Slaughter takes us through four stories over two hundred and sixty years connected to one piece of land in Bethesda, North Wales.
Property is power, and those who control it have a good chance of controlling those who need it as a place to live or to work for a living wage.
Each story is split into parts, so we see the four beginnings of each, followed by the later developments of each and finishing with the endings. Although the arrangement emphasizes their similar trajectory, it gives us only fractured time in which to warm to the characters or become involved with each story.
In 1758, a rich man wants to buy the land from Idwal’s family to build rental houses for workers. Although Idwal is tempted, the land has been in his family for generations and many in the local community use it. The area would later become a key centre of slate quarrying.
In 1902, a bitter strike is taking place in Bethesda with the local priest “denouncing the strikers from the pulpit.” It is the longest strike in British history.
The father of the family this story focuses on is away from home looking for work. The son spends all day on picket lines. The lack of money is forcing people into debt, with a local woman already being evicted from her home for unpaid rent. The priest who collects rent visits the family home to chat with the mother of the family about the debt, eat their food and express a physical interest in the daughter, Madlen.
In 1975, workers in Bethesda are being made redundant as part of a supposed workplace restructuring, which amounts to contracting out the work to cheaper workers in Eastern Europe. Gwen is extremely angry about the situation and wants the community to take action against the factory.
In 2024, Ffion is living in the house that used to belong to her sister who committed suicide. She is promoting her new bestselling memoir, which includes a good deal about her sister, whom she hadn't seen for over six years before her death. Rob, her sister’s former partner, claims she didn’t even know the sister.
The tight performance is well acted by the cast of Bedwyr Bowen, Saran Morgan, Carri Munn and Glyn Pritchard, who very effectively switch accents and mannerisms to match the character they are playing.
The patterns of abuse, exploitation and suffering the play depicts are believable aspects of Welsh and British history. Echoing the deep political pessimism of the current period, they don’t carry much hope, and a theme of actual or potential suicide runs through more than one of the stories.
As the lights darken on the stage, we are left with the image of the entire cast facing us as they each rather greedily eat a handful of black earth.