Newcastle’s Northern Stage is to produce a two-handed version of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.
Directed by Elayce Ismail, the production will be performed in Stage 2, the theatre’s mid-sized auditorium, by Christina Berriman Dawson (Key Change and Rattlesnake for Open Clasp, The Frights for Alphabetti) and David Kirkbride (Pinocchio at the National Theatre, The Crucible on national tour in 2017 and Rathband at the Tristan Bates).
Both will play a range of very different characters in a piece which was originally written (in 1954) as a “play for voices” for BBC Radio, the voices being the inhabitants of the fictional West Wales fishing village of Llareggub as we watch them through 24 hours of their normal (if rather odd, even surreal in some cases) lives. And for a sample of the Thomas’s humour, read the village name backwards!
Elayce Ismail is currently Associate Director at Northern Stage as part of a pilot scheme by the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme (RTYDS) aimed at preparing directors with a strong professional track record for artistic leadership. She has directed theatre and opera for companies including the National Theatre, Royal Opera House, Young Vic, Gate, Soho Theatre, Royal Court, The Yard and Deutsches Theater Berlin.
Her work for Northern Stage includes the sold-out production of The War of the Worlds, which is being revived this week (Wednesday to Saturday).