Under Milk Wood comes to St. Albert

It’s an audacious move for a community theatre to mount Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood – even more so for a school production.

The poetic language can be tricky and it’s all to easy to use ribald jokes to prop up the goings-on in the fictional Welsh fishing village of Llareggub, Thomas’ letter reversal for “bugger all.”

But Debbie Dyer, theatre director for the St. Albert Catholic High School performing arts program, has always marched to her own tune and taken risks in the name of higher learning.

This year, her production choice is the classic Under Milk Wood, a play that brings together an ensemble of odd characters going about their day.

A play that took Thomas 17 years to complete, it presents a reality of love in all its multi-faceted variations.

“He really examined and explored it from different points of view and it was not in a clichĂ©d way,” said Dyer.

There’s Myfanwy Price, a sweetshop keeper that has dreams of marrying Mog Edwards, the draper.

“They start their relationship through letters, but live at opposite ends of the village and never meet. If they met they might not live up to each other’s letters. This way their love is untouched perfection and because they don’t meet that perfection is sustained.”

Then there’s Mr. Pugh, the schoolmaster married to the nasty Mrs. Pugh.

“She’s demanding and he concedes everything to her. How he copes is planning her death. He realizes that in planning her death, it allows him some control, some sanity. What is stopping him are leftover remnants of affection.”

One of the most important characters in the village is Capt. Cat, an old blind sea captain who dreams of his dead shipmates and lost lover Rosie Probert.

“They come to him and make him remember the past. They are dissipated ghosts and want to remember what life was like. In his dreams he resurrects his shipmates and his lost love and through him they exist in some way.”

The 90-minute script counts an ensemble cast of 38 characters with 22 actors, most carrying double roles.

However, Dyer singles out Grade 12 student Hannah Bailey for the extensive work designing a set of double revolves.

“We had a meeting for interested students on the third week of Sept. She took the play home and put her vision into action. She created and designed a set in one weekend. She came back Monday with a 3-D diorama,” said Dyer.

Bailey designed two revolves for the stage as well as a wheel system and completed 90 per cent of the construction.

“It’s compelling to see a student find her passion and have this play become her own.”