Feb 27 2010 by Robin Turner, Western Mail
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales ... -25925844/
ITS towering walls have borne witness to suicides, murders, fires and drug taking, and it’s been home to the punks and poets of a bygone era.
It was where the beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso discussed ideas and Irish poet Brendan Behan downed a pint of vinegar in the mistaken belief it was alcohol.
William S Burroughs, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Tennessee Williams and Mark Twain made it their home, as did Arthur Miller, Patti Smith and, more recently, Ethan Hawke.
And on the 60th anniversary of Dylan Thomas’ first visit to New York, the iconic Chelsea Hotel is to stage a play based around the Swansea writer’s boozy last hours there in November 1953. Even in America, Thomas is the personality most associated with the Manhattan landmark.
Already ill when he checked in, and suffering from the New York smog, the Welsh poet returned to the Chelsea from the nearby White Horse Tavern and collapsed after reportedly declaring in his well-known, sonorous voice: “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies, I think that is a record.”
He died in New York’s St Vincent’s Hospital a few days later and his body now lies next to that of his wife, Caitlin, in a cemetery in Laugharne. Next month, a group of New York actors led by English-born producer James Veitch will perform Room 103, which will take place in the hotel room itself.
It is the room where, in 1978, Sex Pistol Sid Vicious stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death. Vicious, born Simon John Ritchie, died from a heroin overdose before he could stand trial for murder.
Veitch describes the piece as “a night of theatre that explores the private and pivotal moments of our most revolutionary artists as they happened within the walls of this notorious establishment”.
He added: “In addition to exploring Thomas’ alcohol-fuelled end, the play will evoke other historical figures from the hotel’s past like Sid Vicious, Nancy Spungen, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Arthur Miller, Jack Kerouac, Arthur C Clarke and Brendan Behan.”
The play runs at the hotel from March 19 to 28 and Veitch hopes to show it at mainstream theatres afterwards.
The cast will include experienced stage actor Kevin Confey and a number of young New York actors fresh from drama school.
Located on West 23rd Street, the 12-storey red-brick Chelsea Hotel was erected in 1884. It was originally intended as an apartment block for 40 wealthy families, but at the turn of the century it went bankrupt and became a hotel.
The vast, palatial apartments were broken up and no two rooms are alike.
It attracted a bohemian crowd from its earliest days with 1960s singer Janis Joplin spending time there, pop art legend Andy Warhol basing himself there and Sir Arthur C Clarke writing 2001: A Space Odyssey there.
In his piece, The Chelsea Affect, Arthur Miller lionised life in the 1960s at the hotel: “It was thrilling to know Virgil Thomson was writing his nasty music reviews on the top floor, and those canvasses hanging over the lobby were by Larry Rivers, no doubt as rent, and that the hollow-eyed man was Warhol and that scent you caught was marijuana.”
The hotel was the first building to be listed by New York City as a cultural preservation site and historic building of note.
Yesterday, Swansea-based cultural historian and Dylan Thomas expert, Peter Stead, said the play would inevitably add to the poet’s legend in the American mind. He said: “It was 60 years ago this month that Dylan Thomas first came to New York for a literary tour. “The Chelsea Hotel where he spent his last days. There have been many theories about his death but there’s no doubt he was not looking after himself.
“His wife was not with him so a lot of checks and balances were not in place, and he was unwell and drinking far too much than was good for him.
“The play will help to keep Wales in the minds of many Americans which can only be good for tourism and the way Wales is viewed in the world.”
For tix, see this site: http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/show ... t=room9867
They cost $20, including fees. Linda and I are attending opening night, Thursday the 18th, at 7pm.
Hope some others will want to see how LC gets "evoked" here
