“To begin at the beginning. It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.” So, famously, opens Under Milk Wood, and instantly this Saturday matinee audience is magically transported in time and place.
Ever since its first radio broadcast in 1954, Dylan Thomas’ “play for voices” has cast a spell on listeners – and this stage adaptation directed by Kate Wasserberg, which opened at Mold’s Theatr Clwyd and has now transferred to the Sherman Theatre, is suitably entrancing.
Under Milk Wood is an intensely lyrical evocation of a night, dawn, day and dusk in the life of the fictional Welsh coastal village of Llareggub, a vibrant place thrumming with energy, home to a close-knit community that revolves around pub rather than chapel. Rather like Willy Nilly the postman (Jacob Coleman), who, in league with his wife (Chandu Gopalakrishnan), routinely steams open the mail he subsequently delivers, we’re invited to take voyeuristic pleasure in being able to access the private and often passionate thoughts and fantasies of the characters.
So it is that we witness sweet shop proprietor Myfanwy Price (Izzy McCormack-John) and draper Mog Edwards (Macsen McKay) conducting an affair by correspondence alone; prim schoolteacher Gossamer Beynon (Amy Conachan) and romantic barman/drinker Sinbad Sailors (Coleman) harbouring secret passions for each other; and 17-year-old Mae Rose Cottage (Mirain Fflur) fantasising about finding a man. These keenly felt visions of romantic bliss are juxtaposed with the dysfunction and despair of real-life relationships – or at least the stultifying and imprisoning institution of marriage.
Mrs Organ Morgan (Caroline Parker), for example, is driven to distraction by her husband’s all-consuming obsession with his instrument; formidable clean-freak widow Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard (Georgia Griffiths) haunts her beleaguered ex-husbands, for whom the grave has proven no escape; baker Dai the Bread (Adam Bassett) discovers that bigamy isn’t all he’d hoped for; Mrs Cherry Owen (Conachan) endures the abusive behaviour of her drunken, violent husband (Bassett) with a disturbing cheerfulness; and schoolmaster Mr Pugh (McKay) schemes about how to poison his relentlessly sour wife (Conachan), whose voice is “sweet as a razor” and whose smile causes icicles to form.
Mr Pugh’s murderous fantasies and the doggerel verse of the pompous Reverend Eli Jenkins (Séan Carlsen), as well as the salacious gossip and euphemistic allusions to the various villagers’ sexual proclivities, are the source of much comedy. But the play has poignant resonance too. The scenes in which the much maligned Polly Garter (Griffiths) and blind former seadog Captain Cat (Douglas Walker) lament the lost loves of their lives are arguably the strongest and most affecting of this adaptation.
The production also serves as a reminder of the play’s substantial cultural impact and legacy. The scene in which the roguish Mr Waldo (Walker) leads a bawdy Sailors Arms singalong is echoed in The Wicker Man, while Butcher Beynon (Carlsen), purveyor of unusual and illicit meats, is the blatant blueprint for The League Of Gentlemen’s Hilary Briss.
The sheer number of characters both named and unnamed, added to the different narratorial voices, presents a significant challenge to any stage adaptation. However, Wasserberg has kept the cast to a manageable size by asking the uniformly excellent actors to take on multiple roles and carefully choreographing the action to allow for them to exit in one guise and re-enter almost immediately in another. The swift switching is also facilitated by minimalist costumes, often just a sole signifying garment or accessory – at one point Walker changes from Captain Cat to Mr Waldo without leaving the stage, simply through donning the latter’s bowler hat. The narration is also shared around, with all of the actors evidently savouring the rhapsodic rhythm of Thomas’ writing.
A relatively minimal set, composed primarily of a jumble of model houses that emphasises the villagers’ cheek-by-jowl existence, is effective, and the staging is also remarkable for incorporating sign language within the performance itself rather than as a bolt-on provided by a non-acting interpreter. The projected captions are unobtrusive, and indeed enhance the experience for all, through ensuring that not a word of this wonderful play need be missed.
Under Milk Wood, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, Sat 2 May
On until Sat 9 May. Tickets: from £18. Info: here
words BEN WOOLHEAD
