one4review | On 18, Aug 2025

Cyn, staged in the intimate Mint Studio at Greenside@George Street, is a powerful and resonant piece of new Welsh writing that played to a packed audience on its opening day. Written by Sam Rees, who also takes on the demanding central role of Emyr (and his father), the play explores grief, memory, and the long shadow cast by industrial decline in post-mining Wales.

Set in 1995, a decade after the closure of the local pit, the village is still reeling from the national miners’ strike, with “scabs” treated as non-human and the community locked in a state of permanent mourning. The title Cyn (pronounced ‘kin’ and meaning ‘before’) captures this atmosphere perfectly – a village unable to move on from the day the mine closed, which felt like the death of its soul.

Into this bleak setting wanders Simon (Charlie Muskett), an English visitor whose arrival in the pub immediately sparks hostility and suspicion. To the locals, Simon represents privilege and intrusion, yet he too carries burdens of his own, particularly a fraught relationship with his father. His exchanges with Emyr bring to the surface questions of guilt, resentment, and what it means to be trapped by family and history.

Rees excels in a role that demands both anger and vulnerability, portraying Emyr as a man consumed by self-pity, unable to visit his dying father in hospital, yet desperate to articulate his pain. He is also supported by Seren Davies as Mary and Jed Kain as the taciturn Alun, whose quiet presence and occasional singing and guitar-playing add poignancy. The interspersed folk songs, mainly by Max Boyce, give the piece cultural weight and emotional resonance.

The action occasionally felt hesitant, understandable for an opening performance, sure to tighten as the run continues, and a loud air conditioning unit made the dialogue difficult to hear at times. Despite these quibbles, Cyn is a moving, thoughtful play that captures both the scars of a community and the personal cost of living in the past.

*****

Reviewed by Howard

Greenside@George Street, Mint Studio

Until 23^rd August