Under Milk-Wood torrent

A recording of the May, 1953 premiere of Dylan Thomas' "play for voices." The full version would be heard on the BBC in the winter of 1954, with Richard Burton leading an all-Welsh cast, but this version, recorded almost on a whim, has the added attraction of having been done sans music and in front of a live audience, who responds in a heart-felt way after initial reticence. Thomas himself is the First Voice, and his reading of the role is more delicate and nuanced than Burton's was, and there is a splendid cast of young New York actors, among them Sada Tbompson and the wonderful Nancy Wickwire, playing sailors and preachers, housewives and bigamous bakers, and all of their lost loves, little jokes, and unrealized dreams. Thomas saw Under Milk-Wood as his response to the Holocaust and The Bomb, a reminder that there is still beauty and joy in this world. He succeeded.