Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, and his relationship with 92NY, is the stuff of legend. In 1953, at the invitation of John Malcolm Brinnin (the Poetry Center’s director at the time), Thomas premiered his now classic Under Milk Wood, a “play for voices,” to great acclaim on our stage — only six months before his death. Brinnin’s subsequent memoir about Thomas, published two years later, was a scandal — depicting Thomas as a self-destructive alcoholic and a poetic genius in equal measure.
But who was Dylan Thomas, really? And how did the premiere of Under Milk Wood at 92NY shape his legacy? These questions animate Dear Mr. Thomas: A New Play for Voices by Christopher Monger, commissioned by 92NY in celebration of our 150th anniversary. Ahead of a staged reading of the play on Tuesday, May 14 with Matthew Rhys as Thomas and Keri Russell (The Americans), Monger and Rhys sat down to talk to us about Thomas’ legend in their native Wales, walking the line between literary history and myth, their abiding love of Thomas’ poetry, and much more.
When did each of you first encounter Dylan Thomas? Both of you are Welsh, of course, as was he — did you find him in a classroom, or on your own?
CM: He was just in the air. But even as a small child, I remember [former Poetry Center director] John Malcolm Brinnin’s book, Dylan Thomas in America, really upset people. My parents were outraged that this hero had apparently been a terrible drunk, a womanizer, and a thief. People in Wales were so proud to have this fantastic international poet, the author of Under Milk Wood and A Child’s Christmas in Wales, and then suddenly out came this book that said he had been awful. It was shocking, a dark revelation. You didn’t print stuff like that at the time.
MR: I love that it started with Brinnin for you.
CM: Well, when I heard about this bad man, it did make me want to get to know his writing better [laughs]. I got expelled from my Welsh school and my parents sent me to school in England for four years, and the first thing that happened was that the teacher heard my Welsh accent and made me stand in front of the class and recite Dylan. That was hellish.
MR: Which poem?
CM: “Do Not Go Gentle.”
MR: Of course.
CM: For a long time after that I was in love with the American Beat poets. Then when I first came to LA, I met a woman who knew all these Dylan Thomas poems by heart. It turns out she had spent time hanging out with Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder up in Big Sur, and they would all sit around at night smoking pot and listening to recordings of Thomas. I didn’t realize that Ginsberg loved Dylan. I was floored. I thought, I guess our guy really is good after all [laughs].
MR: I think you hit the nail on the head. Being Welsh, Thomas is in the ether. I don’t even know when I first heard “Do Not Go Gentle.” People were constantly quoting him. A friend’s uncle would say, “Here come the boys of summer in their ruin.” And you’d say, “What’s that?” And they’d say, “It’s Dylan Thomas, you oaf!”
Dear Mr. Thomas tells a fictionalized version of the long correspondence between Brinnin and Thomas leading up to Thomas’ premiere of his “play for voices,” Under Milk Wood, at Brinnin’s invitation, in 1953. Christopher, what attracted you to this story?
CM: The stories about the performance in Brinnin’s book are amazing. The cast was on stage, in front of the audience, and Dylan was scribbling notes and making them change the script right there. Anybody who’s worked in theater knows that kind of chaos. I just love it. Under Milk Wood was written over the course of a decade. He essentially wrote a phrase every six month for ten years. He was struggling with it and enjoying it at the same time. You can feel the excitement of something slowly coming into being.
Without giving too much away, how closely does it hew to real events?
CM: It’s pretty close. I looked through a lot of his writing notes, and his letters. We don’t know exactly what happened in the rehearsals, but it’s true to the essence of what happened. I will say that reading his letters was particularly fun — they’re hilarious.
He died about six months after his appearance at 92NY. For better or worse, he’s become something of a mythological figure since then — both for the idiosyncratic beauty of his language and for his drunken escapades. Matthew, how are you approaching the role? Who is your Dylan Thomas?
MR: I played him in a film back that came out in 2008, and the second I got that job I was incredibly excited. And then slowly, as I spoke to Welsh people, I found out that they had a very strong view of how Dylan should be played and who he was. There are no YouTube videos of Dylan Thomas — he exists as a figment of people’s imaginations. They say, “This is what he was like! He wasn’t just a drunk!” You’re holding this national treasure in your hands like a small bird, terrified of taking a misstep. And the stories of his drinking do really cloud the gift that he gave the world, so we don’t want to overplay that. The other piece of it is his voice — we do have these audio recordings of him reading his poetry in this rich, plummy, incredible tone — his father had told him that the way people on the BBC spoke was the proper way to speak, and that’s what he modeled it on. It’s very theatrical. Figuring out how to orate like that to a modern audience is important.
What do each of you hope the audience comes away with after seeing Dear Mr. Thomas?
MR: I rarely compliment Monger, so I’ll let one slip now [laughs]. I think he’s cracked the nut of who this person was, and it will appeal to you equally if who know Dylan Thomas or if you don’t. It’s a beautiful piece.
CM: What I would like people to do is to go read the poems.
MR: Well said.
Matthew, what’s the tougher project for a couple — the story of KGB spies embedded in DC or the story of a Welsh poet visiting New York?
MR: Playing a Welsh poet! Don’t get me wrong, The Americans was the part of a lifetime, but this is a passion project. So much so, our only day of rehearsal falls on my son’s birthday. Keri pointed this out to me — to which I replied, “Don’t worry, he’ll have other birthdays — this will be the only time I play Dylan Thomas at The 92nd Street Y!”
Dear Mr. Thomas: A New Play for Voices by Christopher Monger premieres Tue, May 14.