Thomas and Ives: It’s All in the Words, W-o-r-d-s, Words.
at the Burton Taylor from 23rd November

If you have an ear for the nuances and rich textures of language, then this ‘double bill’ of plays is for you! The Burton Taylor Theatre are bringing to life Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and David Ives’s much neglected All in the Timing. Those who think of Thomas as primarily a drunkard and secondly a poet will be proved mistaken. Whilst glimpses of a drunkard’s perspective decorate the opening scenes of UMW, this is only a glaze to his luxurious palette. The dream scene adds a surreal depth to the make-believe Welsh village of Llareggub (buggerall); not least because it ambles through the reflective memories of drowned and sleeping souls.
Through this dream-confusion of character identities (the actors play about five each), the homogenous nature of village life is revealed. Once you get used to the variations on the Welsh accent, the characters merge and emerge through their differing experiences. Interstices of humour, irony and pathos, revealed in rich rounds of descriptive or spoken language, breathe life into this jumbled community. The second scene brings a ‘morning’ air of uneasy remembrance, as the drunk confronts the inconclusive pointlessness of his night’s unbridled activities. Women gossip and the village resumes a normalcy that is nevertheless overshadowed by drifts of life-death imagery. It is far from sombre, though; There’s the woman who complains of her nightly ’school-girl’ beating, or the revelation of the drunkard’s pathetic pranks. But comedy mostly seeps in through the words; the ironic, accepting chuckle of a weary, inebriated man who finds beauty in pathos.
UMW is succeeded by a collection of four (of five) short sketches by American author/playwright, David Ives. This continues the ’language’ theme, pointedly entitled All in the Timing. These pieces are witty, and short enough to be appreciated without boredom; anyone familiar with modernist works like Eliot’s Sweeney Agonistes (1932) will recognise the genre of conscious word patterning that reduces ‘content’ to a minimum, whilst giving words centre-stage as sound-combinations. But dull it is NOT!!
The pace, for a start, gives no opportunity to twiddle one’s thumbs. An ostensibly two-line sketch of a man - Philip Glass - who spots his ex-lover whilst buying a loaf of bread becomes a full concerto. Words fragment into nonsense, poetry and song, so focussing on the poor chap’s (and girl’s, shop-keeper’s and friend’s) confusion at the sighting. Repetition stalls time, reeling out the momentary dilemma in comic discomfort until the words are gathered together, finally, into a coherent reiteration of the emotional sighting.
It might have been tedious but humour, they say, is all in the timing, and these guys are clearly practised. However, sketch two, Universal Language allowed comedy to dominate form. Even here though, things wound up just when I began to get fidgety. A con man persuades a shy, stuttering secretary to pay for lessons in a nonsense language, Unamunda. Its strange mix of English (‘John Cleese’), Italian and gibberish is surprisingly easy to pick up; even from a man who professes to know only three English words: ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’ and ‘Rice Krispies’; (oh, and ‘That’ll be 500 pounds!’). The two certainly form a convincing duet (revealing its operatic origins) in this ‘universal’ lingo.
I left content and inspired. Anyone wanting to see these should try to make both! They are short enough, entertaining enough, and fit together amazingly well.