Olion to leave its mark
Director shares creative vision for trilogy
Interview with Gethin Evans, OLION’s Creative Director and Frân Wen’s Artistic Director.
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OLION, the innovative trilogy, reimagines the ancient legend of Arianrhod from the Mabinogi, weaving her tale into a modern myth that spans live stage theatre, live open-air theatre on the streets of Bangor, and a digital short film.
Under the creative direction of Angharad Elen, Anthony Matsena, Marc Rees and Gethin Evans, OLION promises to be an experience that will give audiences a taste of something completely new, while remaining rooted in the literary greats of old.
With rehearsals starting in just a few weeks, Gethin Evans reflects on the creative vision for the epic 3-part production that explores the bravery of being an ‘other’ in an unforgiving world.
What first sparked the idea for OLION?
There was no exact start date - we didn’t go ‘oh, look, here's the next Frân Wen show’. Our partnership with GISDA and the Nabod project started two years ago. The young people involved in the project constructed a story, narratives and characters over 18 months and thematically were landing in a certain area.
Alongside this I was having conversations with artists about what they were longing for in terms of creative processes - scale, ambition, co-creation, and opportunities to work in new ways. And so we came to OLION, with the vision of offering artists and audiences something different.
Where did the name ‘OLION’ come from?
I think the word OLION first came when I spent two days with Marc last January. We really got into the idea of lost communities / civilisations, the traces they leave behind and the impact on a community generations later.
We felt it had a real symmetry across many elements of the project. OLION became a really great title, because it meant that we had access to the crossing of two worlds, the good, the bad, the light, the dark; the two O’s representing the solar eclipse that takes place in Part 1 and the promise of a new age of light, moving away from darkness. That was a bit of a cyd-digwyddiad really, we found it worked. And that’s the beauty of devising really - you find those little pockets of promise as the project emerges through the collaboration.
What were those initial conversations?
With Angharad it was very much looking at what story could we tell across these different events, and really exploding the idea of difference that had come through our collaboration with GISDA.
We turned to the stories we have in Wales to find a character and a story that embodies the idea of otherness and the way otherness is accepted or not accepted in this world. Angharad became really excited about the story of Caer Arianrhod and the character of Arianrhod. It offers so many themes; parenthood, motherhood, femininity, sacrifice and abuse and then marrying that with the conversation with the Nabod team around queer identity and safety. It’s not an easy task, actually, to find a single narrative to live across three parts. And to take a story from the depths of the Mabinogi right the way through to modern day.
Marc is incredibly passionate and experienced in the field of site-specific practice and large scale, multidisciplinary work. We thought about the legacy of organisations like Brith Gof and considered what that practice might be today. So that's where our conversations really kicked off thinking about form, style and creating a new, exciting offer for audiences.
With Anthony it has been really fascinating to interrogate the role of movement, our connection to rituals and I suppose the power of collective action. The movement he is developing is visceral, beautiful and raw.
And then, beautifully, we managed to get in a room together with a bunch of amazing actors and a wider team of creatives and go right, come on, how might this work? Where can this go? What does it mean to make a story and characters live across multiple events?
When casting for OLION, what were you looking for?
We've been looking for a company of people who are ready to work in a way they maybe haven't worked before, who aren’t married to one process or discipline. So that openness, readiness and courageous attitude, I suppose, has been really central to the casting process. We realised that's what we were doing. We were looking for a company of people, not for x amount of dancers, x amount of actors, x amount of community members. It was about finding a company who can deliver this project.
How would you sum up OLION?
It's quite a big project to get your head around within 10 minutes. But that's my job, right, to communicate this in a very simple way. It is a story told in three parts that explores the idea and feeling of otherness in this world. And when you fear how the world may treat you because of who you are, is it better to stay in hiding or stand in the light of day and say ‘I am here and I will not hide’?
The first part is an epic Greek-like myth that starts in the depths of the Mabinogion, and Arianrhod’s story.
The second sees Arianrhod’s descendants, a community in hiding, come into our world today and ask our audience to consider how they would welcome and treat them.
And the third, taking the epic events of this myth and story and placing it in a single household; these stories don't just exist in our myths and legends, they are happening today in our world.
What is it going to look and feel like?
I’d describe it as a psychedelic adventure, an emotional sucker punch and a lot of fun. Visually, we are clashing the organic and the industrial and I want audiences to come out feeling a thrill, needing time to process and discuss, but to feel that there is something electric about this fusing of movement, music, design and rich text to have experienced.
PART I: ARIANRHOD [20 - 28 SEPTEMBER 2024]
PART II: YR ISFYD (The Underworld) [28 SEPTEMBER 2024]
PART III: Y FAM (The Mother) [OCTOBER 2024]
