Conversations are uncovered in ‘Under Milk Wood’
In 1954, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wove a lacework of magical vignettes into “Under Milk Wood.”
West End Productions will stage Thomas’ lyrical radio play beginning on Friday, Oct. 18, running on weekends through Nov. 10.
As the play opens, a narrator invites the audience to eavesdrop on the dreams and innermost thoughts of the residents of a fictional small Welsh fishing village called Llareggub.
Thomas first penned a “play for voices” for the Swansea Grammar School with “Milk Wood” conversational stylings when he was 17. In 1943, he outlined a play about a Welsh village certified as mad by government inspectors.
Some of the most idiosyncratic characters in literature populate Llareggub, from Captain Cat to Polly Garter, the Rev. Eli Jenkins and No Good Boyo. Thomas conjured the town’s name by reversing the phrase “bugger all.”
“It’s a very, very unusual construction,” director Joe Feldman said. “It’s one day, 24 hours in the life of a small Welsh village between Milk Wood and the sea.
“He’s primarily a poet,” Feldman said of Thomas. “But even the prose is poetry.”
Packed with 70 characters, the play will be acted by an ensemble of eight portraying multiple roles.
The narrator invites the audience to witness the townspeople’s dreams.
Captain Cat, the blind sea captain, is tormented by dreams of his drowned shipmates and long-lost lover. Lord Cut-Glass dreams of the 66 clocks — one for each of his years — he keeps in his house, all registering different times. Dai Bread the bigamist baker dreams of harems. Police Constable Attila Rees relieves himself into his helmet at night, knowing somehow he will regret it in the morning.
“They’re all very eccentric,” Feldman said. “It’s a veritable gallery of characters.”
“Under Milk Wood” stars Merritt C. Glover, Tim MacAlpine, Colleen Neary McClure, Yannig Morin, Jessica Osbourne, Philip J. Shortell, Carolyn Ward and Dan Ware.
In 1972, the play was made into a film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. A 2014 BBC adaptation of “Under Milk Wood” starred Michael Sheen, Tom Jones and Jonathan Pryce.
“TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING: IT IS SPRING, MOONLESS NIGHT IN THE SMALL TOWN, STARLESS AND BIBLE-BLACK.” — DYLAN THOMAS