It's meant as high praise to say that writer-director Leon Pownall's Do Not Go Gentle, now at the Clurman Theater, is less a play than a theatrical tone poem. It makes perfect sense, since poet Dylan Thomas is the subject here, and the title of the one-man show is taken from the Welshman's most famous poem, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," which contains the repeated phrase "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Rage, however, is only one of the emotions deeply plumbed in the 90-minute, two-act piece. That's not only because Geraint Wyn Davies, Thomas' accomplished stand-in, delivers several of the author's most renowned poems, such as "In My Craft or Sullen Art," not to menti[...]