Theatre Review: The immersive joy and wonder of Dawns Y Ceirw

Molly Stubbs

Whether you begrudge the appearance of mince pies on shop shelves in October or relish the extra hour in bed courtesy of Daylight Saving Time, there’s no avoiding it.

To take the zeitgeist-capturing words of Game of Thrones’ Ned Stark, winter is coming. In fact, as we move all-too-quickly into December 2024, winter is very much here.

But it’s not all teeth-chattering cold and treacherous attic treks in search of decorations. Despite its gloomy reputation, there’s an awful lot to love about winter, the host of festive theatre productions hitting stages across the country being but a few.

In my case, rarely have I emerged from an auditorium into milky hibernal sunshine feeling so upbeat about this season than I did on Friday 22 November, after watching Theatr Cymru (formerly Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru) and National Dance Company Wales’ newest production, Dawns y Ceirw.

“A symphony of hoof beats”

On entering the Dance House, a somewhat unassuming venue opposite the Senedd in Cardiff Bay, the theatre was misty with dry-ice clouds, placing us audience members high in the sky. Below lay a snowy village, lights twinkling in frosted windows.

But, for Owen Meilir’s Carw, a lonely little deer who has yet to find his place in the world, though the land of humans is warm and inviting, it is not the place for him.

As the story kicks into gear, Carw quickly becomes enraptured by another bright light that leads him deep into the woods. Here he is met with all kinds of creatures both mystical and, in the case of a terrifying spider, very real.

While at first he’s more bambi-on-ice, he eventually comes to find that “There is more light in the world than he first realised – within people, in companionship, in places – and in his own heart.”

Meilir’s characterisation of Carw, though silent, speaks volumes in its practiced physicality. A wrinkle of the nose here, a shaking of antlers there, and a symphony of hoof beats combine to render him more cervid than sapient.

But with a sweet shyness and surprisingly relatable story, Carw is a lifelike protagonist that it’s very easy to root for.

Masterful

Meilir is joined onstage by Sarah ‘Riz’ Golden, who takes on the roles of various woodland creatures, including Carw’s reflection, Drych.

Aside from being a master of the twenty-second costume change, Golden matches Meilir’s command and then some, swirling about the stage in swooping circles that are delicate and fierce from one moment to the next.

The third and final piece of the performance is Wales’s Welsh-language Children’s Poet Laureate 2022-2023, Casi Wyn, who originally wrote Deer Dance in collaboration with S4C.

She joins the stage here as narrator, and is the indelible jewel in Cailleach’s crown. With a storyteller’s tone that took me straight back to childhood bedtimes, Wyn weaves Carw’s tale with as much grace and emotional depth as the dancers.

In addition, she performs the play’s songs so perfectly that it’s a wonder she’s singing live. There is not a note dropped or missed. Choral may be the most apt adjective to describe such a voice, yet an ensemble would remove the fantastical magic of Wyn’s dreamlike solos.

As for Dawns y Ceirw’s choreography, the movement builds in intensity not just through individual pieces but throughout the show as a whole.

Directors Steffan Donnelly and Matthew William Robinson take us from tentative toe-taps into a cascade of couplings, ebbing and flowing through fluid floor work and seamless transitions into intricate isolations, all in time with the narrative beats.

Stark beauty

In a similar fashion, Tomás Palmer’s set begins as a sheet of white snow, piled high in sporadic peaks.

Slowly but oh-so-surely, this simplicity reaches full strength as the snow is swept away and a mirrored floor is revealed, so convincing as an icy lake that, for a second, I wondered how the dancers were going to continue with so much water covering the stage.

With birch tree stumps and a backdrop of fluttering snow to boot, Dawns y Ceirw’s set seamlessly evokes the stark beauty of a winter forest while bolstering the performance offered within.

Palmer is also responsible for Dawns y Ceirw’s costumes, which take much the same line.

Carw’s shaggy brown coat follows him as he twirls, his deciduous antlers poking into a silver sky. Wyn’s costume, a pink suit complete with white fringe, is straight from Mrs Claus’ workday wardrobe.

And Golden’s character reel introduces a host of textures, from fluffy peacock feathers to hard octopedal shells, culminating with a tempestuously tactile snow storm.

Immersive joy and wonder

In part thanks to the set and costumes, but also to Joshie Harriette’s lighting design and Alex Comana’s sparing sound effects, Dawns y Ceirw is incredibly immersive.

Far from the gimmicky excuses that term evokes, the show succeeds in wrapping its audience up in its setting and story, which, despite its humorous and sometimes hairy twists and turns, has a delightfully happy ending.

Dawns y Ceirw is certainly compact, in its staging, cast, and runtime, reaching only forty minutes. And yet the phrase ‘the best gifts come in the smallest packages’ seems to have been penned for this performance.

That the calibre of talent on show here could easily fill a much larger auditorium, yet remains a vivid picture-book so easily placed back on the shelf, is its biggest credit. Dawns y Ceirw is a show far greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts glisten as the most unique and original of winter snowflakes.

If you are of the mind that it’s still far too early to be putting Christmas decorations up, but find yourself reaching for the de-icer every morning before the school run, this might just be the show for you and your little ones.

A celebration of this season and all the joy, wonder, and light we so often neglect to draw from it, Dawns y Ceirw is a wonderful choice for your family’s end-of-year schedule.

Dawns y Ceirw marks the first collaboration between Theatr Cymru and National Dance Company Wales.

For more information about the show and to book your tickets, visit Theatr Cymru’s site here.