Mining the Depths of the Human Condition: An Interview with Melisa Annis about ‘Pit’
Melisa Annis Headshot B
“Hiraeth,” a Welsh word that has no translation, provided great inspiration for playwright Melisa Annis. The word represents the feeling of being homesick and longing for one’s homeland, and Annis, who described the feeling of “Hiraeth” as inspiring, said, “The further away I am from home, the more I long to be there, and my writing becomes richer and more in tune with who I am, which is inherently Welsh.”
Annis is the daughter Welsh actress Sue Roderick and Quentin Annis, and her Welsh roots are apparent in her latest play, Pit, which focuses on a Welsh mining during the 1984 miner’s strike. Exploring how the residents of the town struggle with adversity and fight to survive, Pit portrays both the personal and political during a time of great change. Inspired by the 2010 mining accident in West Virginia, Annis felt a strong urge to write about the mining community and, a few pages into Pit, realized she was writing everything with a Welsh accent. She considered rewriting the pages but found the characters to distinctive to change.
“As I explored these characters, the community grew, the play went back in time and suddenly we were in the 1984 miners strike in Wales,” Annis said. “I guess you could say the play lead me, not the other way around.”Growing up in South Wales in the 1980's made Annis very familiar with the subject of mining, an experience which she utilized while writing Pit. She wanted to bring attention to South Wales, a community she said is often forgotten, despite its distinct culture and voice that differs greatly from mainstream England.
“There was no way we wouldn’t hear about or see the effects of the pit closures,” she said. “Whole towns were put out of work and protests were taking place outside of the Welsh Office in Cardiff for years following the closures. Jobless numbers were always on the news. It really was all around us.”
The community Annis grew up in has changed drastically, and she was struck by that change during a recent visit to Wales, where she recognized the sense of community that has persevered despite the economic struggles. Annis experienced what she described as “incredible bourgeois fear” and guilt for writing about a suffering community, but after hearing some family stories she learned more about her own family experiences with the subject.
“My mother very quickly put me back in my place, asking, ‘What do you think my Grandfather was doing in South Wales, Missy?’ and several family stories followed, including the fact that my family had to move to North Wales due to the miners’ strike of the 1920s in South Wales. They were starving and had no other option.”
The “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher speaks the first line of Pit, and while Annis said she didn’t want the play to be about politics, she knew it was impossible to ignore a prominent voice that dominated the airwaves during the 1980s. All of Thatcher’s dialogue in Pit is taken from a series of speeches she gave during the early 1980s, giving a sense of time and place to the play.
Annis describes the time and place of Pit as “times are a’changing,” saying, “There was a moment in time where everything just seemed to snap. I wanted to capture that feeling in a very human way, the disappointments, and excitement and the opportunities.”The themes of Pit, and of people struggling with a failing economy, can resonate strongly with today’s culture, more than 20 years later. Citing the ups and downs of Wall Street and the media’s discourse regarding bankers and and powerful heads of companies, Annis said, “No one seems to talk about the workers, the cleaners, the miners, the factory staff; how hard it is to go on strike, and the repercussions of trying to stand up for yourself. We forget that all this arguing and vilification of unions, and rapid closing of industries affect people in a very real way.”
The impact of this change on society is reflected in Pit, which depicts the shifts in society as well as the economy and was especially reflected in gender roles. Annis describes women taking on the role of organizer in the community, and how their efforts in fundraising resulted in them having a say in the community - and the men listening.
“The dialogue changed; working men used to providing for their families were now being provided for,” Annis said. “Women found their fire in the picket lines and it is said that hearing their voices when crossing the lines was not the worse than anything for those who crossed the lines.”
While Annis freely states she has her own opinions regarding how miners were treated during the strike, she said she tried to limit the voice of opinion in Pit and let the characters speak for themselves. “I do hope, however, that no matter what side of the aisle you are on, that the human aspect of the situation will open up a dialogue about how policy affects real people, not just numbers and names on a piece of legislation.
“Pit is not black and white, it’s not Scab versus Union,” she continued. “It’s simply a story about a community of ordinary hard-working people that have been pushed to the edge of what they know when faced with a faceless power that is bigger than them...for some reason, we don’t celebrate them as much as we do the rich, the middle class and the celebrity. I find these people that I grew up with have far more texture, as well as great humor, that should be celebrated and not pushed aside and forgotten.”
Pit runs February 28 through March 13 at the Theater for the New City. Tickets can be purchased at SmartTix.com.