Review: Classics Theatre Project deftly animates play about Dylan Thomas’ U.S. visits

RICHARDSON — Poets were the rock stars of Dylan Thomas’ time.

In her 1964 play about the influential but troubled Welsh writer of Do not go gentle into that good night and Under Milk Wood, Sidney Michaels depicts the Beatles-like reception Thomas received during moneymaking trips to the United States in the last years of his short life. She also digs into the bad behavior that followed him across the Atlantic and contributed to his death in New York at 39.

Through mostly sharp performances, a new production of Dylan by the Classics Theatre Project animates both his prodigious talent and his overwhelming penchant for self-destruction. On opening night Sept. 13, artistic director Joey Folsom dug deep into his Method bag to humanize Thomas without letting him off the hook for his miserable alcoholism and infidelities.

Some of the production elements at Richardson’s Core Theatre were still coming together at the first performance. The acting was occasionally stiff and the frequent rearranging of the minimalist, handmade set designed by director Jason Craig West — a movable staircase with detachable tables — became interminable. Billed at a little over two hours, Dylan ran for more than two and a half.

A lot of the story is built around Thomas’ fiery relationship with his wife Caitlin. Partially based on her memoir, the play opens with an argument over money. “No one asked you to marry a penniless poet,” he barks at her in the opening moments. She retorts that drinking is what he’s really best at.

While Folsom twists himself into knots to get at Thomas’ darkness, Rhonda Sue Rose portrays Caitlin with an earthy naturalism. In the production’s most seamless performance, Rose’s Caitlin never appears to be anything but a strong if frustrated woman futilely trying to save the larger-than-life man she deeply loves. Before devoting herself to him, she was a promising dancer. Complicating matters is that they have three young children.

You wouldn’t want to deal with this version of Thomas, though many in Dylan try to tame him — to no avail. He hates prostituting himself to the masses, so he undermines most of the attempts to help him earn a living. That doesn’t stop him from flashing his inflated ego or taking advantage of the female admirers who throw themselves at him. Madyson Manning deftly portrays a couple of them. Paige Brantley plays a more skeptical fan.

One of Thomas’ unwitting enablers is American poet John Malcolm Brinnin (Andrew Manning), who arranged the U.S. appearances meant to improve Thomas’ sorry financial condition. (Dylan is built around two trips, though Thomas actually came to America four times between 1950 and 1953.)

Manning depicts Brinnin, whose memoir is the play’s other source material, as out of his depth both in setting up the tours and in dealing with his new friend’s vices and dour attitude. At the same time, Thomas dreams of a university post and financial success. “America is our salvation,” he opines, wrongly.

One of the underlying themes of Dylan is U.S. affluence in the postwar period. Patrons throw money at Thomas even as he undermines his prospects, showing up for gigs and meetings late, if at all. Toward the end of the play, he temporarily sobers up, drinking only soda pop until he falls off the wagon in spectacular fashion.

Gingerly stacking 18 shot glasses around a bottle of Coke (based on a real incident), Thomas returns to his proclivity for tempting fate. His high wire act is matched by Folsom and the Classics Theatre Project.