Bittersweet Yule Gamm’s hearty Child’s Christmas in Wales BY BILL RODRIGUEZ
	A Child’s Christmas in Wales Adapted by Polly Hogan from the story by Dylan Thomas. Directed by Tony Estrella. With Chris Byrnes, Tom Epstein, Rae Mancini, Heidi McNeil, Tom Oakes, David Rabinow, Paul Scharf, and Casey Seymour Kim. At the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre through December 23.

When Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet and world-class alcoholic, had something to say about happiness, it paid to listen. Being one of the most self-destructive personages of his time, his joyful directives to us have the air of deathbed requests we’d be churlish to ignore.

So the production of A Child’s Christmas in Wales now being given a hearty rendition at the Gamm is poignant as well as festive. It’s set in 1952 during his last Yule, in the year that his collected poems were published at the height of his celebrity. He was in the States then, in a literate period when a glib and exotic littérateur could come across like a one-man Beatles invasion. This was during a lecture and reading tour, and in 11 months he would come back to Manhattan and drink himself to death at age 39.

Thomas, our first Dylan, was the poet who railed "and death shall have no dominion," among many, many other fulminations against mortality. In a lifelong tug-of-war held within him, on the one side was death and on the other were fond memories of his boyhood, celebrated in the prose-poem story A Child’s Christmas in Wales and the nostalgic poem "Fern Hill."

Those two happy writings provide the bulk of this production, filled out with bridging narratives and an occasional Welsh carol, folk song, or drinking song.

We are in his hotel room when Thomas arrives to greet us, as he stumbles in drunkenly singing. Wife Caitlin is back home and none of her temporary replacements are at hand, except for a couple of bottles of Scotch.

Chris Byrnes gives us the round-faced youth of Thomas’s earlier photographs, plus his impression of the poet’s boisterous charm. Various characters from Thomas’s youth take turns with him as they recite the lines. Who does so depends on what mayhem is being described. There is his put-upon mother (Rae Mancini), keeping the kids from sneaking peeks at their presents. There is the loudly kindly grandfather (Tom Oakes) and uncles who cough over cheap cigars (Paul Scharf, Tom Epstein). We get the boy’s fellow tormentor of cats and hurler of snowballs, Jim (David Rabinow). Thomas’s sister Glynnis (Heidi McNeil) serves by turns as both sibling victim and co-conspirator against the grown-ups.

Director Tony Estrella whips this all into a frenzy, like a holiday dessert that always has room for more goodies. Not getting in the way of our fun, he lets Casey Seymour Kim take over the show for an extended stretch as Miss Prothero, aglow and then ablaze on the bottle of parsnip wine she is swigging. Between Kim’s wisecracking improv and the amusing song she is singing, "When the Wine Is Good," she not only makes us laugh but also demonstrates how Thomas acquired the ego ideal of becoming an entertaining drunk.

And then there is the lyrical language. Ah, the lyrical Dylan Thomas language. Take his description of how the "snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely white-ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunderstorm of white, torn Christmas cards."

But let’s not forget that this treat for us is bittersweet, not saccharin. "Fern Hill" opens with "Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs / About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green," but concludes on a balancing note: "Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea."

The set design by Andy Lederman strikes the right Chelsea Hotel ambiance without resorting to more than one shabby touch (veneer peeling off a bureau). Costume design by Marilyn Salvatore keeps the folks real.

This is the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre’s inaugural production in its new digs. The annex to the Pawtucket Armory, which is being renovated for permanent quarters, has been fixed up quite nicely from its prior incarnation as a garage. Seating extends no more than four rows to the walls and the rake is steep, so every sight line is close to the actors and unobstructed. If you’re planning on attending, bear in mind that the December 16 performance is being presented as a benefit for the victims of the recent mill fire in Pawtucket. Tickets that evening are $75.