By 1953, the poet Dylan Thomas was ready to turn to writing large-scale dramas. He died at the end of that year, shortly after completing Under Milk Wood, subtitled “A Play for Voices” and first broadcast on radio in January 1954. In this vivid poetic-dramatic evocation of the variegated population of a small Welsh seaside town, Thomas strands humour and death-tinged melancholy through monologues, dialogues, vignettes and songs. Llareggub and its population spring to vibrant life, so intensely particular that they achieve universality.
Brendan O’Hea’s direction sure-footedly balances poetry and drama. On a bare stage, Wayne Dowdeswell’s lighting seems almost a palpable entity surrounding the characters. Birdsong, children singing, the sough of “the jollyrogered sea”, Gary Dixon’s sounds entwine Olly Fox’s music; they shape the space. Pale cloths hang from the flies; their scalloped edges etch shifting contours that suggest now hills, now clouds, now both together in Anna Kelsey’s haunting design.
The blending that characterises the setting finds an echo in the cross-gender casting: six actors shapeshift 37 roles. Only Alistair McGowan is stable as the Voice, narrating the town into being. In the “bible-black” darkness of the beginning, other voices stream from balcony and stalls to join his. Llareggub’s inhabitants rise from the auditorium as if summonsed.
Characters are everyday-believable yet of mythic dimensions – like Lynn Hunter’s blind Captain Cat, salted with sea memories and tears. Using subtle movements and minimal props, each of the actors morphs roles in the space of a breath. Steffan Cennydd, languishing against a stage pillar, is Mae Rose Cottage, who longs to “sin till I blow up”. A shift to upright and he instantly transforms into the Reverend Eli Jenkins. This witty juxtaposition is one of many. Ross Ford is willowy as lovelorn Myfanwy Price, spine-fused rigid as aspiring wife-murderer Mr Pugh. Among their multiple roles, Charlotte O’Leary’s Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard and Caroline Sheen’s Polly Garter are particularly fine.
Fifty years ago, Under Milk Wood was the Watermill’s first professional production (it featured the young David Jason). If, in 50 years’ time, the theatre mounts another version, it will be hard put to better O’Hea’s envisioning.
