Dead Poets Live: Sylvia Plath – Wilton’s Music Hall, London

The week that marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath is a moment to celebrate both her brilliance and her struggles in this creative and informative theatre-meets-lecture-meets-poetry-reading format.

Back For Another Installment Of Dead Poets Live

It’s quite remarkable to think that I was last at Wilton’s to see Dead Poets Live almost a year ago. How time flies. On that occasion I discovered what the format was all about, and learned about T. S. Eliot and his connection to music hall star Marie Lloyd. This time I came armed with the knowledge that I was going to see a hybrid event which is sort of like a lecture on poetry where the poet has come to life. James Lever does the lecturing, in this case on Sylvia Plath. Denise Gough plays Plath herself. Dressed in an outfit reminiscent of mid-century American women’s colleges, with a mid-Atlantic accent and self-deprecating humour, Plath by turns challenges the interpretation of her work, chips in with additional biographical details, or reads the chosen poems.

Having been twice now to Dead Poets Live, I absolutely love this format. Granted, I am inclined towards entertainment that’s on the geeky side (hey, you’ve seen the blog). But it just captures the essence of the poetry so well. There is a storytelling arc that underpins the evening. In the case of Sylvia Plath, what we are investigating is how her poetry both reflects and transcends the events of her life. The chosen poems show the development of her poetry, and also how her writing was both fuelled by her very real struggles and a way to confront and understand them. Having ‘got to know’ Plath through Gough’s on-stage interpretation, her ultimate and inevitable death is devastating.

Shining A New Light On Sylvia Plath

Going to a girl’s school in New Zealand in the 1990s, was it inevitable that we studied Sylvia Plath’s poetry? Perhaps. We did seem to have a bias towards the female authors on the curriculum. I still remember fragments of some of the poems we analysed line by line. Unexpected words and images. Soul stripped bare, wounds open and on display for all.

And yet I was unprepared to hear them straight from the poet’s mouth, so to speak. Works I remember, like Stillborn or Lady Lazarus are desolating. I think it’s partly the immediacy of the format, and partly the fresh interpretation: Lever breaking down a poem we’ve just heard part of, revelling in the sounds, schemes and imagery, before Plath reads it again in full while we listen with a new appreciation. Maybe there’s something in there as well about hearing these poems at an interval of a couple of decades, with more life experience now under my belt.

Had Plath not died so infamously in the winter of 1963, she would have been ninety this year. This tribute by Dead Poets Live is a fitting way to celebrate a poet who worked hard to find her voice, never settling for mediocrity or taking the easy path. It’s on for two more nights at Wilton’s, with proceeds going to Safe Passage.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4/5

Dead Poets Live: Sylvia Plath on until 9 February 2023