CREATED BY / CRËWYD GAN RACHEL TREZISE, COMMON WEALTH & THE COMPANY / Y CWMNI Photo / Llun: @NTWTWEETS Jon Pountney / Elfen / National Theatre Wales #NTWSTEEL Sam Coombes NATIONAL THEATRE WALES WE’RE STILL HERE & COMMON WEALTH Photo/ Llun: Dimitris Legakis Jason May 2 NATIONALTHEATREWALES.ORG @NTWTWEETS #NTWSTEEL FACEBOOK.COM/NATIONALTHEATREWALES Photo / Llun: Dimitris Legakis Kully Thiarai Artistic Director / Cyfarwyddwr Artistig THIS STORY IS STILL UNFOLDING. Welcome to Port Talbot and to National Theatre Wales’ newest production – We’re Still Here, created with Common Wealth. In a time of signifi cant change and global turmoil, it is perhaps no surprise that we want to try and understand what is happening around us; to close ranks and fi ght for those things that have sustained our communities and our way of living. To try and hold on to what we know and to feel some sense of purpose and control. The battle for the survival of the steelworks in Port Talbot – the last bastion of heavy industry in Wales – is ongoing. The blast furnace is still lit, but the world of work is changing fast. This story is still unfolding. Like so much of our work, We’re Still Here developed through conversations. Through talking to the steelworkers, the unions and the people of Port Talbot. It is our response to a moment in time, a moment when questions about the nature of work, what it means to be working-class and the impact of globalisation on our daily lives feel very immediate and real. As ever, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the show, so please share them with us: FACEBOOK.COM/NATIONALTHEATREWALES @NTWTEETS #NTWSTEEL [email protected] Without an audience, there is no theatre, so thank you for attending today and supporting National Theatre Wales. KULLY THIARAI Artistic Director / Cyfarwyddwr Artistig National Theatre Wales 3 NATIONAL THEATRE WALES WE’RE STILL HERE & COMMON WEALTH SOME PEOPLE MIGHT SAY “WELL, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?” AND THE ANSWER IS WE EXPECT A LOT. PEOPLE SAY, “WHAT ARE YOU, A DREAMER?” AND THE ANSWER IS YES, WE’RE DREAMERS. WE WANT IT ALL. WE WANT A PEACEFUL WORLD. WE WANT AN EGALITARIAN WORLD. Howard Zinn 4 NATIONALTHEATREWALES.ORG @NTWTWEETS #NTWSTEEL FACEBOOK.COM/NATIONALTHEATREWALES COMMON WEALTH Photos / Llun: Dimitris Legakis / National Theatre Wales Above / Uchod: Rachel Trezise & Evie Manning Left / Chwith: Rhiannon White & Evie Manning People are dancing, talking, singing, coming together and We’re Still Here for us is about pride, fighting back. We’re Still Here is about all of that. about fighting back, about how working As Gary Keogh from Community Union says “We will not walk class people can respond to the way that quietly into the night”. capitalism and greed operates. To end on a quote from the incredible Howard Zinn: We wanted to make a play full of leaders, that would challenge and provoke debate about what being a working-class leader means; about how we need to respond to the attack on the “Where progress has been made, working-class that increases daily. In these times, it feels necessary to make theatre that brings us all together. wherever any kind of injustice has We’ve been inspired by how the Save Our Steel campaign been overturned, it’s been because has fought back and got organised. We’ve also been inspired people acted as citizens, and not by the people at the heart of it, who have kept their heads high and spoke more truth and sense to us than any politician ever as politicians. They didn’t just moan. has. They have taught us so much about the world, ourselves, and the future we could have if we stand up for it. They worked, they acted, they We were interested in ghosts, and how capitalism operates organized, they rioted if necessary to create ghost towns, and how this is both a reminder and a warning to us to keep fighting. The past has shown us that to bring their situation to the attention it takes generations to recover from the obliteration of jobs, but it also shows us that people can make change. of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.” RHIANNON WHITE & EVIE MANNING Common Wealth 5 NATIONAL THEATRE WALES WE’RE STILL HERE & COMMON WEALTH “AS BOTH A WRITER AND A HUMAN BEING, I AM A PRODUCT OF INDUSTRIAL SOUTH WALES” Rachel Trezise 6 NATIONALTHEATREWALES.ORG @NTWTWEETS #NTWSTEEL FACEBOOK.COM/NATIONALTHEATREWALES Photo / Llun: Dimitris Legakis / National Theatre Wales My father grew up on the Sandfi elds Estate and worked in the At around the same time as Tata’s announcement I’d just Port Talbot Steelworks along with my grandfather and uncles begun work on an exploratory project with Common Wealth and on both sides of my family. I grew up in the 1980s on the other National Theatre Wales. We were trying to fi nd out where the side of the Afan Forest in the Rhondda valley, surrounded by the Welsh working class leaders had gone, where the Dic Penderyns remnants of the coal mining industry: slag heaps, the skeletal and Aneurin Bevans of the present day were hiding. We remains of the mines themselves, and lots of unemployed men. watched with much excitement as the Save Our Steel Campaign Everywhere I looked in my corner of Wales there was evidence responded uproariously to Tata’s announcement; taking social of heavy industry. But by the time I left for university the coal media by storm, unfurling banners at Cardiff Blues and Ospreys mining hangover was healing, the slag heaps and mine shafts fi xtures, marching on London and Brussels. And we realised grown over. Steel was the only thing left. that’s where our working class heroes were. When Tata announced in January 2016 that 750 jobs were For me the script is a tribute to the guts of the Save Our Steel to go in the Port Talbot plant, and then later announced campaigners and the working classes throughout the UK. it was going to sell its entire UK business, I understood what Austerity measures mean that presently working people are a devastating blow it was for the community of Port Talbot, dodging missiles from almost every direction. We are living for all of the surrounding area, for the whole of Wales. through a social care crisis, a social housing crisis, a child The steelworks is the last major employer of highly skilled poverty crisis, a mental health crisis. Zero-hour contracts have manual labourers in the country. Without it Wales’ industrial reached record levels and food bank usage continues to rise. life is over. A situation that would be a lot easier to accept It’s imperative, I think, a matter of urgency, in fact, that the had those unemployed coal miners of the Rhondda not turned voices of the people caught up in these desperate straights, are into unemployed sons and grandsons. heard, loud and raw at this critical juncture; the beginning of the end of heavy industry in the UK. RACHEL TREZISE WRITER / AWDUR 7 NATIONAL THEATRE WALES WE’RE STILL HERE & COMMON WEALTH IT ALL BEGAN WITH ONE FARM: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PORT TALBOT STEELWORKS Graham Rowland Steelworker and local historian / Gweithiwr dur a hanesydd lleol Known as “Theodoric’s Grange”, it was the richest Yn cael ei hadnabod fel “Maenor Dewdrig”, hon farm in Wales and was inhabited by monks. The farm oedd fferm gyfoethocaf Cymru a mynachod oedd ei came from a Cistercian order, and the workers were thrigolion. Roedd y fferm yn perthyn i Urdd Sistersaidd, known as Lay Brothers. From artefacts discovered a byddai’r gweithwyr yn cael eu hadnabod fel brodyr on the site, it is believed that the monks were using lleyg a roddodd i ni’r gair Saesneg ‘labourers’. O black band iron ore (which is only 40% iron) from the eitemau y daethpwyd o hyd iddynt ar y safl e, credid bod nearby rivers, and smelting it with charcoal to create y mynachod yn defnyddio band du o fwyn haearn (gyda implements like keys, cutlery and various other tools dim ond 40% ohono yn haearn) o’r afonydd cyfagos, a’i doddi gan ddefnyddio golosg er mwyn creu eitemau megis allweddi, cyllyll a ffyrc ac offer amrywiol. The path of ironmaking in Port Dechreuodd trywydd gwneud Talbot and the surrounding areas haearn ym Mhort Talbot a’r fro started in Pontrhydyfen, with the ym Mhontrhydyfen, gyda gwaith Oakwood Iron Works; who used haearn Oakwood; a oedd yn locally mined ore. Production then defnyddio mwyn haearn wedi moved down to Cwmavon, where ei gloddio’n lleol. Symudwyd the works were owned and run y broses gynhyrchu wedyn i by the English Copper Company. Gwmafon lle’r oedd gwaith ym When they went out of business, mherchnogaeth ac a oedd yn cael the works were taken over by ei redeg gan yr English Copper the Bank of England, the only Company. Pan aethant hwy yn company of this kind to be taken fethdalwyr, prynwyd y gwaith over by a government. gan Fanc Lloegr, yr unig gwmni o’r math hwn i gael ei fabwysiadu gan lywodraeth. The First World War created massive Bu’r rhyfel byd cyntaf yn gyfl e rhyfeddol opportunities for the steel industry in Wales, i’r diwydiant dur yng Nghymru, gan y gellid as low grade ore could be used to make steel defnyddio mwyn haearn o safon isel a’i droi’n for shells. There was also a German prisoner ddur ar gyfer cynhyrchu sieliau. Yn ogystal of war camp situated in Goytre which provided roedd carchar rhyfel ar gyfer milwyr o’r Almaen a source of cheap labour for the works at Port yn y Goetre a oedd yn ffynhonnell llafur rhad ar Talbot, supporting the war effort.