Adaptation against Myth: Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott and the Violence of Austerity

Rebeca Gualberto

doi:10.14198/raei.2021.35.06

Abstract

This article explores, from the standpoint of socio-political myth-criticism, the processes of revision and adaptation carried out in Gary Owen’s 2015 play Iphigenia in Splott. The play, a dramatic monologue composed in the rhythms of slam poetry, rewrites the classical Greek myth of Iphigenia in order to denounce the profound injustice of the sacrifices demanded by austerity policies in Europe—and more specifically, in Britain—in the recession following the financial crash of 2008. Reassessing contemporary social, economic and political issues that have resulted in the marginalisation and dehumanisation of the British working class, this study probes the dramatic and mythical artefacts in Owen’s harrowing monologue by looking back to Euripides’s Iphigenia in Aulis, the classical play which inspires the title of Owen’s piece and which serves as the mythical and literary background for the story of Effie. The aim is to demonstrate how Owen’s innovative adaptation of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, slurred out in verse, resentful and agonising, speaks out a desperate plea against myth, that is, against a dominant social ethos that legitimises its own violence against the most vulnerable—those who, as in the classical myth, suffer the losses that keep our boats afloat.

Highlights

Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott was first performed at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff on May 8, 2015
Sharp and witty, the play is a profoundly shattering monologue composed in the fast-paced rhythms of performance poetry that rewrites the classical Greek myth of Iphigenia in order to denounce the unfairness of austerity politics in Europe—and in Britain—after the financial crash of 2008 and the economic crisis that followed
It looks back to Euripides’s Iphigenia in Aulis to continue the age-old trend of mythical adaptation, recreating the story of the tragic Greek princess—the daughter of Agamemnon who was sacrificed to the gods for the sake of Greece—amidst the drama of south Cardiff, where the life of impoverished Effie spirals in a turmoil of drunkenness and tragedy as she suffers the cruelty of welfare cuts in post-recession Wales

Summary

Introduction

Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott was first performed at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff on May 8, 2015. It looks back to Euripides’s Iphigenia in Aulis to continue the age-old trend of mythical adaptation, recreating the story of the tragic Greek princess—the daughter of Agamemnon who was sacrificed to the gods for the sake of Greece—amidst the drama of south Cardiff, where the life of impoverished Effie spirals in a turmoil of drunkenness and tragedy as she suffers the cruelty of welfare cuts in post-recession Wales. Experimental and frantic, Owen’s play conveys the futility of an individual’s selfdetermined story against the fatality of the myths that codify the ill-will of the gods. It readjusts, in the form of innovative political drama, the capriciousness of the ancient Greek divinities to cry out desperately against the cruelty of a dominant narrative, the myth of austerity, which legitimises its own violence and injustice

Rewriting Iphigenia

Ferocious Tragedy

Against Austerity

Conclusions