Echoes from Milk Wood
SHORTLY before his death, I heard Dylan Thomas, with four professional actors, read Under Milk Wood in New
York-an unforgettable, stimulating and tather bewildering experience. Since each actor read several parts, it was almost impossible to separate character from character. After a while, I was forced to listen to it as a_ poem rather than as a "play," and surrender to the jostling, leaping waves of metaphor. The BBC version in ZB Sunday Showcase, a superb piece of radio, was much easier to follow. Yet even here, I found the natrative-descriptive passages the most satisfying parts, perhaps because, in the voices of the two narrators, I seemed occasionally to catch an echo of Dylan Thomas’s own distinctive cadences. This remarkable work would almost by itself justify the existence of radio and compound for its sins. But, heresy though it may be, I couldn’t help wondering last Sunday if Thomas wasn’t just a little too deliberately "earthy" in this piece, as if "warm and noble humanity" had always to him perforce'to be somewhat shabby, and whether if, some Sweet Thursday, you turned the corner from Thomas’s Milk ‘Wood, you wouldn't find yourself among the "loveable" bums and golden-hearted harlots of Cannery Row.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550204.2.20.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 810, 4 February 1955, Page 10
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205Echoes from Milk Wood New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 810, 4 February 1955, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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