mean?
Each little red star is a clickable link to additional information on whatever listing it appears beside. It might be a link to an article in a local newspaper, or it might be a press release the company has sent me.
“Under Milk Wood”
Posted by Gail M. Burns - July 2010
“We are not wholly bad or good
Who live our lives under Milk Wood,
And [God], I know, wilt be the first
To see our best side, not our worst.”
- Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood
Eight actors, one ladder, one sheet, two plastic milk crates, a smattering of hand props, and the words of Dylan Thomas’ beautiful script are all that fill the empty storefront space at 291 River Street in downtown Troy where the Bakerloo Theatre Project is mounting Under Milk Wood, the second show of their 2010 season. But with these minimal supplies one spring day in the lives of more than 50 inhabitants of the tiny, imaginary Welsh village of Llareggub is brought vividly to life. Under the direction of Bakerloo’s Co-Artistic Director Lily Junker men, women and children sleep, dream, wake, wash, work, worry, sing, pray, eat, mourn, love, and hate.
“Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known and from you no secrets are hid…”
– Collect for Purity, Book of Common Prayer
I do not know if this Collect, commonly used in Roman Catholic, Anglican, Episcopalian, and Lutheran liturgies would have been prayed by Reverend Eli Jenkins and his flock at Llareggub, but it embodies the way in which Thomas unfolds the petals of this town – all hearts are open, all desires are known, no secrets are hidden from you, the viewer. You see directly into the hearts of these average people, and you see yourself clearly reflected back, even though they are people from another time and place and language.
In Bakerloo’s other 2010 offering Romeo and Juliet I was bothered that there wasn’t an older actor to play Juliet’s nurse. Here I had no trouble accepting these young actors as men and women of all ages, often in rapid succession. There is not a weak link in this ensemble, nor in the seamless flow of Junker’s creative direction.
Therefore, in alphabetical order, I enjoyed Charlie Brown as blind Captain Cat; Lauren Diesch as prickly Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard, (who runs a bed and breakfast but does not want strangers breathing her chairs or sleeping on her sheets) and sensual Mrs. Cherry Owen; Abigail Fudor as gullible Mrs Beynon, Bessie Bighead, and the late, lusty Rosie Probert; Becca Landis as the loathsome Mrs. Pugh and the promiscuous Polly Garter; Peter Martin as Nogood Boyo and Reverend Jenkins; Patrick Shaw as Willy Nilly Postman and Organ Morgan; and Adam Thomas Smith as the long-suffering Mr. Pugh and Mr. Waldo, too many times a father.
While Thomas wrote two narrators, Junker makes do with just one – Parag Gohel as First Voice. He was a tad too breathlessly precious at the start, but soon blended in to the community unobtrusively.
I loved how the step-ladder became a store counter, the prow of a ship, and a casket. I loved how there was always a chord sung when Organ Morgan spoke. (Organ Morgan is my favorite character in Under Milk Wood and I don’t know why!) I loved it every time Landis sang. I loved the spherical paper lantern that Goehl hoisted as the sun. I loved the simplicity of the whole production, which was, of course, not simple at all, but finely detailed and precisely staged.
In my theatrical wanderings it is impossible not to see the connections between works of art. The correlation between Under Milk Wood (1953) and Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1937 play Our Town, which is being given two major productions regionally this summer, is obvious. It is unimaginable that Thomas would not have been aware of Wilder’s work, but he didn’t set out to imitate. Thomas was a poet and “Under Milk Wood” was created as a radio play. Wilder’s work is conspicuously theatrical, whereas Thomas’ is a word portrait. And there are distinct differences, and not just geographical ones, between Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, and Llareggub, Wales. Thomas’ created the name of his town by reversing the letters of the decidedly rude phrase “Bugger All,” which shows a saucy lightheartedness that Wilder lacks. (Click HERE to see Thomas’ own map of Llareggub at the National Library of Wales Web site.)
The other direct connection that sprang to my mind was between Under Milk Wood and the Tuna plays created by Joe Sears, Jaston Williams, and Ed Howard and set in Tuna, Texas, the third-smallest town in that great state. I happen to have just seen and reviewed the third of that four-play “trilogy” Red, White, and Tuna and the similarity between Reverend Jenkins’ morning and evening prayers for his town and Charlene Bumiller’s ode to her hometown My Tuna (which won the Javalina Club’s Poetry Writing Contest) are obvious.
The connection between these disparate works is their common celebration, and dissection, of small town life. They prove similarity, rather than the differences, between people in worlds as different as New England, Wales, and the North American desert.
While this production is practically perfect, this wouldn’t be a GailSez review if I didn’t have a quibble or two. In this case I have just two, and they are minor ones. Junker has, miraculously, found matching grey t-shirts and denim slacks to fit all eight of her actors, male and female, in their various sizes and shapes. Too often when a show is simply costumed the “matching” pieces don’t match (I could show you my ancient wedding photos with our three ushers in their “matching” grey suits!) Here they do, but the overall effect, along with the lack of colored light in Eric Chase’s design, is slightly dismal. I wish there had been some dashes of color added somewhere.
Looking through the script I realized that some cuts had been made, and that many of them contained Welsh words and names. The Welsh language, or Cymraeg, is a thing of great mystery to English speaking people. On paper it looks just as foreign as it sounds spoken. The bits of Welsh Junker and her cast have retained are mispronounced, and while I doubt that a whole lot of people will know or care, I think it is only polite to get foreign words right. There are a few easy rules to remember – a single F is pronounced as a V, a double F as an F, a single D as a D, a double D as TH, and W is generally a vowel with a double O sound. The double L is a tricky one, but to get it right all you have to do is put the tip of your tongue on your upper palate right behind your top front teeth and blow.
Under Milk Wood was Dylan Thomas’ final work. He delivered a full draft to the BBC on September 9, 1953, then left for a tour of America, intending to revise the manuscript on his return. He died of pneumonia in New York City exactly two months later, on November 9. In this play, Thomas allows the dead to speak as plainly as the living, just as the wonderful poetry and prose he left behind speaks to us today. Click HERE for the full text of Under Milk Wood.
“Remember me.
I have forgotten you.
I am going into the darkness of the darkness for ever.
I have forgotten that I was ever born.”
- Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood
The Bakerloo Theatre Project production of Under Milk Wood is performed July 16, 17, 18, 23 & 24 at 7 p.m. and July 24 at 2 p.m. at 291 River Street in downtown Troy, NY. Tickets are $16 for adults. Wednesday and Thursday performances are Pay-What-You Can. High school students are admitted free with an accompanying adult. $25 for a Season Pass. (PLEASE NOTE: you must CALL SMARTTIX (877-238-5596 to get a season pass!) The show runs an hour and ten minutes with no intermission and is suitable for ages 10 and up (younger children will find the poetic language too dense and confusing.)