Under Milk Wood

Version: Abridged
Author: Dylan Thomas
Narrator: Richard Burton
Genres: Contemporary Plays
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published In: April 2001
# of Units: 2 CDs
Length: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Ratings:
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Overview

"“ Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep” "

Completed only a month before Dylan Thomas died, Under Milk Wood is an inspired and irreverent account of life and love in a small coastal village in Wales one spring day. Full of raucous energy and lyrical passion, it is the most complete expression of Thomas' unique perspective on the human condition.

Called “ a play for voices” by the author himself, Under Milk Wood premiered in 1953 with Thomas and five American actors reading the parts and was preserved, almost by chance, in this remarkable recording. Here is the author's greatest work rendered as he himself directed, in his own famous voice that captures the lively melodic essence of the work itself.

Featuring Dylan Thomas with Sada Thompson, Nancy Wickwire, Ray Poole, Dion Allen, and Allen F. Collins

This is the only recording ever made with Thomas in the cast, and it owes its existence to the chance thought someone had just before curtain of setting up the little tape recorder that was at hand and laying a microphone on the floor at the center of the stage. Although a studio recording for Caedmon was planned, Thomas did not live to do it. That this recording was not erased or lost or thrown away remains some kind of miracle.

Author Details

Author Details

Thomas, Dylan

"Thomas was born in Swansea, in south Wales: his father David, who was a writer and possessed a degree in English, brought his son up to speak English rather than Dylan's mother's native Welsh. Dylan Thomas' middle name, ""Marlais"", came from the bardic name of his uncle, the Unitarian minister, Gwilym Marles (whose real name was William Thomas).

Thomas' childhood was spent largely in Swansea, with regular summer trips to visit his mother's family on their Carmarthen farm. These rural sojourns, and their contrast with the town life of Swansea, would inform much of his work, notably many short stories and radio essays and the poem ""Fern Hill"".

Dylan wrote half his poems - ?And death shall have no dominion? is one of the best known - and many short stories when he lived at no 5 Cwmdonkin Drive. By the time he left the family home in 1934 he was one of the most exciting young poets writing in the English language.

He collapsed at the Hotel Chelsea after drinking heavily while in New York City on a promotional tour and later died at St Vincent's hospital. He was a diabetic and, it is said, not very careful about managing it; in particular, heavy drinking is dangerous for diabetics. Following his death, his body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne, where he had enjoyed his happiest days. In 1994, his widow, Caitlin, was buried alongside him. Their former home, the Boat House, Laugharne, is now a memorial to Dylan."