DIRECTOR'S NOTE by Leon Pownall (1943-2006)
In Do Not Go Gentle, Dylan Thomas is the quintessential
performance artist acting out his life, a pop-star poet addicted to booze, bawds, and that most potent drug of all; fame.
Stuck in time and timelessness, Dylan tries to balance himself on a line strung between his persona as a performer and his
inferiority complex as a writer. Most drunks on a tightrope would stagger and fall into silence, but not Dylan the entertainer;
his extraordinary powers of extemporaneous speech are full of eloquent poetry, a scouring wit, condemnation, revelation, and
a self-effacing humour that makes him most attractive to ladies - an eternal blessing for a philanderer. Dylan's speech is
seldom impaired by slovenly articulation or lazy syntax; in this respect, he is a true Welsh Bard; the poet as actor, and
the actor as poet. When all is said and done, and despite an awesome jealousy of Shakespeare - "He wrote it all"
- Dylan Thomas seeks and finds the balance of life, time and timelessness, in his writing and, perhaps. a few heroics after
pints......
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