A Child's Christmas in Wales

My Program note:
This evening we shall follow Dylan Marlais Thomas-arguably the Twentieth Century's most influential lyric poet-to the Christmas of his childhood at 5 Cymdonkin Drive, in Swansea, South Wales. But we shall in truth return to the Christmases of our own childhoods wherever we played them out. Thomas manages to evoke those half-forgotten images of our own past by so clearly summoning up the memories of his own and giving them to us with startling poetic turns of phrase that is both brilliant and inspiring. One critic referred to his word-smithery as "surreal." And, in the literal sense, I believe that critic was right. Thomas' images are sur real-more than real. They depict a recognizable reality, but at the same time they startle and excite our imaginations.

Still, some aspects of tonight's production may seem surreal in the popular sense of the word: e.g. all through tonight's play, people break spontaneously into song. Americans rarely indulge in such behavior, except in the musical theatre. The Welsh, on the other hand, do. The cast and I had the great serendipitous good fortune to attend a spectacular concert of The Pontarddulais Male Choir which happened to visit Bethlehem as we went into rehearsal. Through the good offices of John and Joan Prytherth of Easton, we were able to join the choir at supper before the concert. Much of the "tone" and "character" of what you see tonight came from that remarkable experience. We learned not only of the superb musicianship of the Welsh, but their humanity, humor, love of words and grace as well. And we learned that they love to sing. Singing seems as naturally to the Welsh as breathing. And they sing well, often improvising words to familiar melodies. So the spontaneous singing you see in this little paean to Christmas in Wales may be closer to "real" life than we Americans might think. We like to think of tonight's production as a sort of thank you to our new Welsh friends and a Christmas card to our audiences.

As the Welsh would say: Nadolig Llawen! Happy Christmas!