Gwyn Thomas once had a cult-following in the United States, but his work has never been well-known in Britain, even in Wales. Perhaps it is because, while drawing on universal themes, his context was a parochial one; he confined his plots almost entirely to the South Welsh industrial valleys in the early and middle years of the last century. Even within Wales his audience did not extend to the Welsh-speaking heartland, or to many of the more rarified pundits of "Welsh literature". This was because he was an example of that strangest of all birds, a Welsh author writing in English about the condition of living in his Wales. Today, undeservedly, his work is almost forgotten. It was a pleasant shock, then, to discover a flyer for a new drama, based on the recently re-published collection of Gwyn Thomas' short stories "The Dark Philosophers". We bought tickets and set off to see the performance in Newport.
The play begins.
The set is effective. A dark space, the stage was occupied by a towering hill of old-fashioned wooden wardrobes, desks and chests of drawers. These became, at different times in the play, terraces of valleys-houses, hillsides, coffins and portals, and, too, they symbolised quite beautifully the domestic setting of Gwyn Thomas' work and the skeletons in closets that he often hangs out to dry.
The company is energetic, eager and clearly relishes the opportunity to give life to its creation, and the result isthat the performance itself is a little fervid, as if the characters have just run up the Terraces to gossip with us, and want to tell all, even though they haven't got their breath back yet. The upshot is that, throughout the evening, the pathos and wry humour of life's "big, sad, beautiful joke", bitter and sweet as the darkest chocolate, become overcooked and somewhat caramelised.On this stage, Simeon is no longer a
complex, brooding, enigma but a straightforward incestuous ram; Oscar is still vile, but the dark corners of the lives of those he squashes have been swept clean, and their own sinister cobwebs quietly disposed of.
A Commedia dell'Arte character, masked, stalks the set throughout. He walks among the characters, sometimes listening, sometimes teasing, sometimes telling them what they must say. That this Arleccino is intended to be the writer himself is undeniable, for he wears his unmistakable signature trilby hat and suit, He provides the suitably monstrous puppet-Oscar with its voice and takes part in an unnecessarily supercilious re-enactment of one of Gwyn Thomas' frequent television appearances, but his purpose, other than to provide the glue that binds the pastiche, is unclear.
And, finally, what of Walter, Ben and Arthur, the Dark Philosophers themselves? Perhaps they were too busy on that cold night, arguing over strong tea in the back room of Idomeneo's cafe, to make the complicated journey from Porth to Newport. Oh, and wasn't there a fourth among them? Ah yes, I remember, there was ... perhaps he was at Idomeneo's too, for though we looked hard, we are not sure that we saw him at the Riverfront.