Writer: Dylan Thomas
Directed by Tony Boncza (with original direction by George Dillon)
Under Milk Wood is set in the fictional seaside town of Llareggub (read it backwards!) and follows the dreams and thoughts of its inhabitants over the course of a single day. Originally a radio drama written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, first broadcast in 1954, it’s been adapted many times for stage, screen, and sound. This version stars Guy Masterson, a one-man show that is well-suited to Wilton’s Music Hall, a beautiful and somewhat faded theatre in Whitechapel with an invitingly featureless stage.
Like the rest of Dylan Thomas’s work, Under Milk Wood is energising, magnetic, and almost mystical. It’s full of crude and profound imagery, insistently musical language, and almost nonsensical phrases that nevertheless strike very deeply.
Guy Masterson performs the entire text himself, with only a short interval break. His performance is an impressive feat of memory, endurance, and physical virtuosity. On two separate occasions, he downs a pint of water, and seems as though he really needs it
Masterson’s performance is complemented by a delicate original soundscape by Matt Clifford: soft and beautiful music, and the occasional harsh cry of a seagull. Lighting is used brilliantly, to show the shifting times of day, indoors and outdoors, the cross of the church. The overall impression is scenic and wide-ranging, creating a wave of multi-voiced Welshness that washes over the audience like the sea.
Under Milk Wood follows a varied cast of characters, whose interlocking threads do not add up to a single central narrative. The appeal is the beautiful phrases, humorous sequences, and most of all striking images – the blind sea-captain hearing the voices of the drowned, Lord Cut-Glass with sixty-six clocks in his kitchen, the reverend reciting a poem-prayer for the town at sunset.
Masterson switches roles and scenes with whiplash speed, and there are few signposts besides lighting to indicate scene changes, different characters speaking, or the distinction between words spoken aloud or featuring in someone’s inner monologue. Jumping around like this means the various storylines are very difficult to follow, and at times it becomes a little overwhelming. At 100 minutes plus interval, the play isn’t long, but it feels long. The onslaught of content, however poetic, is draining without a structure around it.
More often than not, Masterson plays this for laughs: particularly with women and children. Their high-pitched voices and awkward body language often feel like drag comedy. This makes it difficult to take seriously: scenes which could have been touching fall flat, because the audience is waiting for a punchline. Thomas’s original text is full of crude sexual jokes, but Masterson has made the very existence of women into a joke. His impressions of children feature amusing jokes at the children’s expense, but with the undertone that it is somehow grating and impolite for these children to do anything at all.
Masterson tells the audience, proudly, that he has been performing this for 30 years. His love for Thomas’s poetry, and his own performance, is clear. He throws his heart into it. And it is watchable, but not captivating, an onslaught of poetry and passion that is undercut by cheap and slightly sexist impressions.
Runs until 13 May 2023.
The Reviews Hub Score:
One-man onslaught of poetry
