| Moonless Night in the Small Town, Starless and Bible-Black… |
At Louche Theatre |
| Louche Theatre- Under Milk Wood , Morlan Centre Aberystwyth , December 5, 2011 |
Two thousand and eleven has been a good year for “Under Milk Wood.” Ballet Cymru translated it into dance and took it to Sadlers Wells. It was chosen, fittingly, to inaugurate Cardiff’s Richard Burton Theatre. Director Marilyn le Conte took it back to its origins, a production for radio, and made it all vintage microphones and fifties knitwear.Louche Theatre has done the reverse. Aberystwyth’s Morlan Centre is held up on six sets of high truss wooden beams. Director Harry Durnall’s design attaches a ten-foot square of red canvas to an upright beam. Paul Ingrams’ Captain Cat speaks against a mast and sail. A semi-circle, of wrack, rope, lantern, lobster pot and buoy, marks out the acting space. Jojo Engelkamp’s sound has a gurgle of water as background. This Llaregyb is markedly maritime. Fitting the location, it is more Newquay than Laugharne in spirit. There are few theatre pieces so dependent as “Under Milk Wood” on the first minute or two, to capture the flavour of the whole. Heather Giles does it very well, evoking Dylan Thomas’ “slow black, crow-black fishingboat-bobbing sea.” Louche Theatre has a loose repertory of community players and Heather Giles is one of them. The company for this production numbers twenty-eight members. As Lillie Smalls Billie Adam has grown noticeably in poise and confidence. John Edwards’ Mr Pritchard is reduced to a timorous squeak. Medi Jones-Jackson is a seductive Polly Garter as she scrubs the floor, Matt Fullwood a lusty and physical Butcher Beynon. Geoffrey Walker’s four roles include Lord Cut-Glass and Reverend Eli Jenkins. He gets to do some fine preening in a straw boater. Lisa Lewis is a sultry Gossamer Beynon, Carwen Griffiths a husky-voiced Rosie Probert. Nest Howells as First Neighbour gives to Thomas’ lines a clear measured cadence. “Under Milk Wood” sits in a not quite comfortable place, part classic, part national treasure. This production is a reminder that, although it is affectionate homage, it also carries a mischievous humour. Harry Durnall has placed his audience in a semi-circle so that, past the actors, the smiles and the tilted heads of other viewers are visible. It’s not laugh-out-loud humour but a consistent, subversive undercurrent. Llaregyb is after all a community where lawns are waxed to make the birds slip. The milkman waters his milk. “Lives of the Great Poisoners” arrives in the post. Threats are issued to throttle the parakeet and stuff the mouse-holes with cheese. Dylan Thomas expressed an intention to add song, but it did not happen. Here the cast of twenty enter and leave singing. Ruth Edwards, in a quaint black hat with feathers, leads. It may not be in the script but it fits. However fissiparous and gossip-filled a community may be, it still joins in ceremony and song. It is an impressive imaginative representation, as much for community theatre as Llaregyb. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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