Playwright: Sidney Michaels. At: Red Theater Chicago at the Den, 1333 N. Milwaukee Ave. Tickets: 1-773-773-0540; www.redtheater.org; $32. Runs through: Dec. 22
Welsh poet, playwright and short story author Dylan Thomas ( 1914-1953 ) was, arguably, the most prodigiously gifted English writer of the 20th Century. Undeniably, he also burned his candle at both ends: his profligacy was legendary and beyond control with regard to drink, sex, drink, money and drink. Published at 16, a radio celebrity at 30 ( his astonishingly rich, sonorous voice is preserved in recordings ) and a meteoric star of the U.S. literary lecture circuit by 1950, he drank himself to death at 39, leaving behind debts, three young children and a wife with whom he had a mutually abusive, alcohol-fueled relationship.
This Broadway hit of 1964 recounts his raucous U.S. tours, his stormy marriage and his death, which the play posits may have been intentional. There are choice supporting roles for Thomas' wife, Caitlin ( Brittany Ellis ), and for American poet John Malcom Brinnin ( Casey Chapman ) but they pale in contrast to the title role in which Gage Wallace does spirited work channeling Thomas' head-strong passions, as guided by director Aaron Sawyer. With his boyish looks, pleasant voice and disheveled, tweedy clothes ( costume designer Rachel Parent ), he's convincing except for his beard, for Dylan Thomas was clean-shaven. Why would director Sawyer think a beard was the way to go?
The answer is he's treated the play as a cartoon of sorts. As written, much of the dialogue is pointed and snappy, often a bit sarcastic or arch or pseudo-poetical. Even so, much of it could be played as realisticindeed, it usually is but Sawyer rejects that line in favor of cartoon-like exaggeration. Maybe it's a valid idea, given the play's condensed timeline ( three years squeezed into what feels like six months ) and the irresponsible and childish behavior not only of Thomas but of all the play's adults ( with the sometimes-exception of his wife ). Brinnin ( whom I knew ) comments that Thomas' U.S. tour is "a Marx Brothers movie ... it's Salvador Dali." Sawyer seems to take that as his interpretive direction, hence the beardless poet with a beard.
Playwright Sidney Michaels ( whom I also knew ) cannot really explain why Dylan Thomas burned himself up. Its most telling line is Thomas' observation on his mid-1940s radio broadcasts: "I was suddenly aware that I was reading the best of me and it was all old stuff." In his lifetime, Thomas published 90 poems, more than half of them written when he was between 16 and 20 years old. Still, the quality of his later workshort stories; his play, Under Milkwood; and a few poemsdid not diminish. The man himself flamed out, not his talent. The play engages audiences, then, as witnesses to a train wreck and this production drives full throttle.