Told by two voices in lyrical prose and by the characters’ dialogues and songs, “Under Milk Wood” is the cyclical tale of a spring day in the Welsh town of Llareggub and of its odd inhabitants. Each encounter offers confessions, conjurations and the small, mundane secrets of life. Thomas described time as a constant opponent, and his longing for innocence lay in a “non-awareness of time”. In Llareggub, life and death share a world.
Dekolta’s Handwerk installed Dylan Thomas’ unusual intermedial texture in a disused salesroom. To this day, “Under Milk Wood” is attributed to the audio drama genre, an attribution that disregards the performance that ensues from the differing dramaturgies. Using figures, implants and instruments, this experiment developed a pictorial and tonal language that enriched the bilingual German-English text with adequate vocabulary. A “dialectic of the senses” dissects the depths of the textual structures that become a projection space for fantasies and memories.
In “Under Milk Wood” we send our visitors on a voyage to experience the dreamt and distorted images of reality and memory that are registered in human collective memory, and which Thomas sought to capture in the lyrical language of his creation.
Performance: Noemi Fischer, Florentin Groll, Barbara Lehner,
Gina Mattiello, Ruei-Ran
Music: Ruei-Ran Wu, Jörg Ulrich Krah
Conception, Staging, Setting: Jan Jedenak
Dramaturgy: Elisa Weingartner, Jan Jedenak
Dramaturgy Assistance: Noemi Fischer
Costume, Staging, Setting: Daniela Tidl
Light and Sound: Nikolaus Granbacher
Sound recording: Fabio Hofer
Aroma: Yogesh Kumar
Production: Peter Ardmar, Elisa Weingartner
Graphics and Marketing: Peter Ardmar
Photo: Bernhard Hochreiner
Special thanks to Gordana Crnko, Bernhard Hochreiner, Fabio Hofer,
Daniel Kovalenko, Andreas Niederndorfer Raphael Sikora and Clara Trischler
Supported by Municipal Department 7 of the City of Vienna – Cultural Affairs
German adaption rights through Erich Fried, Desch-Verlag.
Duration: 60 minutes
Premiere 2010