In his opening monologue for The Lotus Eaters, the first episode of the National Theatre’s forthcoming multi-location production of The Odyssey, actor Tony Dudley enthuses about a statue of Perseus in Trentham Gardens on the fringes of Stoke-on-Trent. It’s one of many ways the production is rooted in the place it was created, in order to reimagine the Greek epic for audiences across England.
“We love doing impossible things, and we wanted to do something we’ve never attempted before,” said Emily Lim, director of Public Acts, the National Theatre’s community arts programme, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary with The Odyssey, presented in five episodes. “The idea of telling one story across the whole country, with lots of different communities living in lots of different places, but ultimately coming together through shared purpose and shared imagination, felt really exciting.”
Dudley, 37, a local amateur actor who has long held a passion for Greek mythology, is a narrator for the play, which sees the Lotus Eaters’ island replaced by a nightclub. “It’s remixing the Odyssey for modern culture,” said Dudley. “It’s about being brave and saying ‘Let’s make something of this, and put a spin on it for the modern age.’” He is part of arts organisation Restoke, one of a number of partner groups the National Theatre has collaborated with on the project
After the performances in Stoke-on-Trent, the story continues in Doncaster, Trowbridge and Sunderland, with each community taking on a different episode of the tale, before performers from all groups unite at the National Theatre in London for the final instalment.
“If you’d have told my 18-year-old self one day you’re going to be on the stage at the National, I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Stoke resident and former theatre technician Charis Jones, 50, who plays part of Odysseus’s crew. “It’s been a wonderful experience, and our episode feels very much ours, with all our stories. With a different cast it would be a completely different show.”
Each episode is written by a playwright based in that community, with Gabriella Gay taking the helm in Stoke. “We’ve done it in an interesting and different way, by co-creating it together and making sure that it was directly linked to all the people in the room and their stories,” said Gay. “So we’ve got a really great epic story, which explicitly links to Stoke-on-Trent, but it’s also a wider and more universal story.
“There could be a barrier with the language, or people feeling like it was an old tale and not in their world. But picking up on the themes, people could quite easily relate that to their own experiences.”
Playwright and lyricist Chris Bush, who has written the final episode, and is acting as dramaturg for the others, said the key to the production’s success is building authentic relationships with participants.
“The most important thing is to take those community participants absolutely seriously, and to treat them as artists and as makers in their own right,” said Bush. “The worst sort of approach is the idea that you’re going in and doing them a favour by coming and creating art for them, with them. This is properly about creative collaboration, and enabling people to tell stories in a way that is inherently truthful to them and the place they find themselves in.”
Journeying alongside the production will be The Galley, a 10-metre longship, which will pop up in public places to collect messages of remembrance from the local community, and will act as the stage for a closing ceremony at the end of each episode.
“The more we talked about it, and started to understand the Odyssey as a story of resilience and healing and hope, the more it felt like the right material for this moment in our country’s lifecycle,” said Lim. “We’ve worked with people who have been very socially isolated, and people for whom this is incredibly new as an experience. It’s been inspiring to see people being so active in their communities through this project.”
The Odyssey will be told in five episodes across England from 30 March, culminating with the final episode at the National Theatre, London, 26-28 August
