Under Milk Wood

Critiqued by Holly Bartges

Every once in a while a production clutches a tight grab, refusing to let go. The wanting to know more of the why's and wherefore's haunts midnight hours. Such a production is Germinal Stage Denver's production of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood - a play for voices. Do Not Miss. That has to be said right up front.

Owen T. Niland and Lisa Mumpton as Mr. and Mrs. Cherry Owen in Germinal Stage Denver's production of Under Milk Wood

Under Milk Wood provides a remarkable cast of highly skilled actors providing voices for numerous intriguing personalities living in the fictitious Wales' seaside town of Llareggub.

Originally written as a radio play, the stage called, and Milk Wood responded.

Directed and designed by Ed Baierlein, the set features a large painting of Llareggub where the hillside town meets the sea. Baierlein did the painting from a tracing offering an evocative sensation. As the characters appear telling their inside/outside stories, a fuzzy aliveness creeps into the painting. You can actually see the townspeople walking the streets, sitting in their small houses, cutting flowers from their gardens, sitting around rough hewn tables in the local pub with a glass of beer, sniggering over their private jokes, reconciling dark tormented dark sides, and wallowing in lost dreams and crumpled opportunities.

Thomas awesomely mingles human nature at its finest and most frightening. His word magic comes alive as a vivid painting set to music. GSD's production simply takes the breath away, and when the story is over and the houselights come up there is the wanting for more.

The exquisite "ensembled" cast includes: Baierlein, Rita Broderick, Sallie Diamond, Stephen R. Kramer, Leroy Leonard. Lisa Mumpton, Owen T. Niland and Alana Opie. The staging flows as smoothly as breakers lapping the sandy beach as the actors assume one character after another.

It begins with the characters milling around the stage, periodically exchanging comments, for the most part lost in their thoughts, but there is more.

I was momentarily thrown for a loop seeing Kramer and Mumpton as ushers. Wait a minute. I thought they were in the cast. Had I seen so much theatre my brain was on overload with actors and characters. Dressed in casual attire, albeit somewhat strange for ushers, my brain did flip-flops as Kramer showed me to my seat. I was sure he was in the cast, along with Mumpton, but there they were as ushers. I couldn't wait to peak at the program. I was right. As the characters began to mill around the stage, Broderick came to the edge of the stage and asked if I had gotten coffee. What? Did I hear her right? The gentleman on my left reiterated what she asked. Coffee? Of course, I had my coffee, although it was by now gone. Broderick left the stage and brought coffee to me. The gentleman on my left said, "How's that for service?" What a unique experience. With the painting looming across the back wall of the stage, the characters dressed in casual warm clothing, shawls tied and twisted, the moment didn't create attention toward Broderick as one would think, but rather drew me into the atmosphere of the small Wales seaside town and the people who lived there.

Sallie Diamond in Germinal Stage Denver's production of Under Milk Wood

A major character, Captain Cat, takes over Baierlein's physique, as he dreams of lost sea comrades, and romps with the ladies.

Diamond bends and blends into Mrs. Willy Nilly who justifies her husband's knocking her about dreaming of being spanked by a teacher for being late to school.

The postman Mr. Willy Nilly borrows Niland to disclose his dreams of delivering mail in his sleep, reading the mail with his wife before he delivers it so he can announce the news all over town.

Niland also allows Mr. Cherry Owen to have a crack at him so he can dream more of drinking. His dreams give him fits since what he drinks isn't what he desires.

Mrs. Cherry Owen has found a way to live with the drunken Mr. Cherry Owen and the sober Mr. Cherry Owen. Mumpton brings her giggling and laughter with her darkened inside private thoughts to life.

Dai Bread clutches Leonard to relive his "craftified" dreams of Turkish girls while the bigamist bakes bread during the day.

Broderick as Mrs. Dai Bread One compares notes with Mrs. Dai Bread Two grandly played by Opie.

Then there's the schoolmaster Mr. Pugh, an upstanding citizen during the day dreaming of poisoning his wife at night. Pugh claims Kramer for his walk about to unveil his public welfare, and his secret death wish.

Mumpton invites Mrs. Pugh into her life to let us see and hear why Mr. Pugh wants to poison her.

These are only a few of the many characters the actors assume, swapping identities in nano seconds.

GSD's production swirls with Thomas' emotional images. The real life images of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki dug deep into his soul. Perhaps this genius' wrap-around insights don't immediately bring the horrific events to mind, but he "bombs" human nature with his pointed beautifully crafted words. This particular cast feeds one's imagination rather than distracting as their eyes gloat, glimmer, cry, snarl, and laugh.

Baierlein's innate ability to climb inside the minds of writers whether they be poetical playwrights or playwriting poets connects with his ability to bring out those finely tuned qualities in his actors. With pathos, humor and dastardly dreams, Under Milk Wood is a prime example of immeasurable "puddinged" proof.

It becomes as though Dylan Thomas sits in the midst of the GSD stage slyly smiling, surrounded by the very people he struggled to create lo those many years ago, standing so vividly before us 57 years after his death.

Eyes grab me. When shopping, at a restaurant, at the theatre, walking through a park, do you ever wonder about the people you pass? Who are they? What are they thinking about? What worries them? Has something good just happened or has tragedy just slapped them in the face? Are they on the verge of pursuing a dream or have they just given up? Even when I am with others, in conversation, certain eyes pinpoint the questions.

Alana Opie as Mrs. Dai Bread Two, Leroy Leonard as Dai Bread and Rita Broderick as Mrs. Dai Bread One in Germinal Stage Denver's production of Under Milk Wood

It has been said Thomas went for an early morning walk while staying in New Quay and images and poetic lines began to take shape and form for his poem Early One Morning that eventually found their way into Under Milk Wood.

Milk Wood begins with Dreams captured in the early morning and follows the characters through 24 hours with Morning, Afternoon, and Night.

Baierlein, as the First Voice at a podium begins:
To begin at the beginning:
It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobble streets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

You hear it, see it, and smell it as you are taken inside the heads of the numerous characters.

Because of the lyrical symphonic musicality of the words, there is the semi-wanting to close the eyes and let the imagination unsnap its leash. However, the cast is so magnificent with their ever-changing body language, screwed up expressions, longings, hurt, reminiscence, wanting, and disappointments, that one dares not close the eyes. As they move around the stage, claiming the souls of different inhabitants of Llareggub, the imagination grows stronger and more vibrant than if the eyes had been left to their own devices, remaining closed.

Controversy continues to tantalize over where the town in Thomas' imagination lies. Controversy swells around where Thomas actually wrote Milk Wood. Some claiming it had to be New Quay. Others insisting some of it was written in Italy, and at least one essay indicates most of the material was written in New York. It took several years for the magnetic poet to finish. Even on the first staged reading in New York, he supplied the ending to the actors as they applied their make-up.

Then there's the question of Milk Wood. Where did it come from? Researching several documents, I could find no reference. In contacting the official Dylan Thomas website, Jo Farber, Dylan Thomas Project Manager, informed me "there doesn't appear to be a definitive source for Milk Wood". Aie-e-e! Once more the methodical word genius leaves our imagination burning as his incredible characters rattle us, please us, delight us, with their hidden thoughts and daily mundane activities.

In the beginning, it was said, don't miss this production. It needs to be said again and again. Don't. It is sheer total gold sprinkled with a great deal of fun and fancy as Thomas, Baierlein and eight phenomenal actors bring Under Milk Wood to life.

Under Milk Wood
By Dylan Thomas; Directed and designed by Ed Baierlein