Ruth Leon recommends… Dylan Thomas- Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
UncategorizedDo Not Go Gentle into That Good Night – Dylan Thomas
Click here to watch : Free
This comes from the National Theatre as a sort of trailer for their forthcoming live production of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. It is simply one great actor reciting a poem in the lobby of the National Theatre but when that actor is Michael Sheen and the poem is Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, sparks fly and language takes wing.
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Deeply moving. Thanks for much for sharing.
And please don’t ever bother with the nasty 12-tone setting by Stravinsky (tenor, SQ and 4 trombones).
In his ‘Conversations’, Stravinsky relates how Dylan Thomas always struggled with money, and that all those stimulating grant bodies were not open to him. Yet, he did not help him.
Nothing beats recitation by the author:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mRec3VbH3w
That can’t be denied, V. Lind. A local troupe gave “Under Milk Wood” in a tiny basement theatre here, reinforced by actual Welshers almost at arm’s length and not to be kept there. I remember best Organ Morgan, and a line from one of the Welshwomen,– “Isn’t life terrible, thank God?”
There is a recording in poor sound of a performance with Dylan Thomas in the cast. His recordings are those of a great actor-poet.
[Nothing beats recitation by the author]
On the contrary, others do it better, as other conductors often improve the compositions of a conductor-composer. Intolerable.
Philip Glass looks like him.
[Philip Glass looks like him.]
Much, much better.
Dylan Thomas was nothing but a horrible south Wales alcoholic, nothing “great poet” about him at all.
Only to the English is he great, because the Welsh language poets depise him as a nobody, compared with our 1000+yr old tradition of wonderful poetry in a language Dylan couldn’t speak properly.
When I hear his voice and his diction and content, it makes my skin creep.
The “music” of it is dissonant, harsh and dark.
Don’t admire Dylan, he represents the worst of Wales.
[a language Dylan couldn’t speak properly.]
I thought he couldn’t speak it at all. It’s to his credit that when asked, in an interview, to name his greatest regret, he replied, “Never having learned a second language.”
“All the Welsh are natural actors, and only the very worst become professional.” — Richard Burton