A retelling of The Odyssey, Homer’s epic story of endurance and hope, is to be the centrepiece of a landmark project next year by the National Theatre in partnership with local artists and communities.
The production will be staged in episodes in Stoke-on-Trent, Doncaster, Trowbridge and Sunderland. Each of the four parts will be written by a local playwright, and performed by local people alongside professional actors.
The fifth and final episode will be a full-scale musical production at the Olivier stage of the National Theatre in London involving hundreds of people from across the UK including cameo performances by groups from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
“It will be logistically very challenging, but thrilling to have people from all over the country on the stage for the final part,” said Emily Lim, director of Public Acts, the NT’s national community initiative, which celebrates its fifth anniversary in 2023. Next year is also the 60th anniversary of the founding of the NT by Laurence Olivier.
Lim and her colleagues wanted to stage an “epic, episodic story which would allow us to go on a journey around the country and end back at the National Theatre”, she said. “The Odyssey was one of the most obvious, and we resisted it for a while partly because of that.
“But this is a story of endurance, resilience, of overcoming trial upon trial. And of hope, of finding a way of keeping going. In the context of the past two years, this is a pertinent thing to explore.
“How do we keep going in the face of a world turned upside down? When everything’s falling apart, how do we look up? Where’s the light? Where’s the hope? Where’s the forward motion? And we find it in each other.”
Each episode will be self-contained and “very bespoke”, but part of one larger story, said Lim. “We want to give as much autonomy as possible to the four amazing writers and artistic teams around the country. But we also need to make sure that the story holds as a consistent whole.”
All four parts will open with the same prologue, and the same song will be performed with variations in each production. “There will also be something we’re calling ‘passing the baton’ – a community member from each place will travel to the next place to perform as part of that opening. And they will bring with them a gift to the company they’re going to from the company they’ve come from.”
An element of the final episode will be a recap of the first four parts. Lim said: “We’d love it if people travelled to see all five episodes, but everything will be available to stream. And each piece can be enjoyed independently.”
Lindsay Rodden, who is writing episode four which will be staged in Sunderland, said the project was a “huge undertaking, the absolute opposite of watching something on your phone”.
The Sunderland episode will be the stories of Odysseus’ encounter with the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis, and the Cattle of Helios. “These are exciting, dramatic, terrifying tales. People are drawn to huge, epic dramas,” she said.
Sunderland Culture and the Sunderland Empire theatre, the NT’s partners, had an “arms wide open” approach, said Rodden. “It’s an invitation: who wants to join in? We have a big beautiful stage, come and help us fill it.”
Public Acts was established in 2017 as a participatory theatre programme, with its first production the following year. “Theatre is all about anything being possible,” said Lim. “With something as massive and as epic as this, the show will be a big celebration of who we are and who we can be when we come together as a community of artists.”
The first four episodes will be staged in April 2023, with the final episode in August 2023.
