‘An Explosive Performing Force’: the Actor in Dylan Thomas

Abstract

From his childhood in Swansea until his death in New York in 1953, Dylan Thomas was an instinctive actor. During his teenage years he acted in more than twenty-three stage productions, thirteen of them as a member of Swansea's Little Theatre Company. Although his roles were essentially English and his speaking style somewhat mannered, the latter was strongly influenced by the rhythms of the Welsh language spoken by family members and experienced in the chapels of his childhood. Subsequently, radio broadcasts of his poetry and short stories were very much those of an actor, the emphasis on the voice and, in the stories, on the presentation of many varied characters, of which his play for voices, Under Milk Wood, is the supreme example. But Thomas also carried his love of performance into his everyday life, playing the fool and acting outrageously at parties and in pubs. The comment of one of his contemporaries that ‘Dylan was an actor; he acted practically every moment of every day’ could not be nearer the mark. Gwynne Edwards is Emeritus Professor in the Department of European Languages at Aberystwyth University. He is also a playwright, and two of his adaptations of short stories by Dylan Thomas – ‘The Peaches’ and ‘Extraordinary Little Cough’ – have recently been performed by the Swansea Little Theatre Company as part of the Dylan Thomas centenary celebrations.