Peter Buckroyd reviews Under Milk Wood at the Loft, Leamington Spa
DYLAN Thomas wrote his 1954 play as a radio play with the listener hearing the voices of over 40 characters in the (backwards?) Welsh town of Llareggub so the challenge of creating a stage performance where the audience can see as well as hear what is happening is a considerable one, writes Peter Buckroyd.
It often doesn’t work very well. Because you can see the performers you can’t always work out which character they are playing. It’s easy to get the characters muddled up. Thomas’s poetic script is sometimes difficult to get your head round. Visual signals can easily confuse what Thomas intended to happen within the mind of the listener.
In David Fletcher’s enchanting production (he is also the voice of one of the two narrators) the Loft Theatre avoids all these potential pitfalls by showing the audience a recording studio with the actors arriving, chatting to each other and milling around before the ‘On Air’ sign lights up when they begin to stand or cluster round one of the six BBC microphones.
Even though the show is not amplified it is easy to imagine what is going on, particularly as the actors are so clearly differentiated, each wearing some sort of 1950s clothing which makes them recognisable and distinct from all the others.
Four of the actors also play subtle and atmospheric music composed by Jonathan Fletcher as well as the voices of their own characters. I haven’t seen a production before when it has been so easy to know and recognise the characters or where the other actors smile and react to what is going on.
This is very much an ensemble production with not a single weaker link, but mention has to be made of the wonderful signing of Polly Garter played by Jo Banbury and the really touching unrequited love scenes featuring Mog Edwards (Jonathan Fletcher) and Myfanwy Price (Charlotte Dodd).
Dylan Thomas explore the twin themes of death and love in the play, and it becomes very clear that we are listening to much of what the characters fantasise about but repress in their daily lives. It has something recognisable to all of us about what we think but do not say and about how so much of our fantasy lives are coloured by love and sex as well as death.
This is a truly delightful theatrical event. The music very much enhances the vocal extravagance of the script and the lighting on the side walls is a creative and thoroughly appropriate addition to the dream sequences..
