As many times as you pored over "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" in high school, as much as you attempted to parse the words on the page, maybe even appreciating the black-and-white interplay of the letters lined up in neat rows, there is simply no way to truly appreciate Dylan Thomas without hearing his words spoken aloud.

"Listen," commands Ed Baierlein as First Voice in Germinal Theatre's production of Thomas' "Under Milk Wood," his tale of life one spring day in the fictional Welsh town of Llareggub. Even without the imperative, you want to listen, you strain to listen. You feel the words slipping over you and sliding away even as they give way to the next batch of words, each more magical and lyric than the last, and you struggle to hold onto them.

Thomas gently smothers the listener under a blanket of language and images, delighting in the sounds words make in strange juxtaposition with one another as much as in their meaning.

Consider this invitation: "Come now, drift up the dark, come up the drifting sea-dark street now in the dark night seesawing like the sea, to the bible-black airless attic over Jack Black the cobbler's shop . . ."

The "play for voices," as Thomas subtitled the show, is an embarrassment of riches of this nature. At a taut hour and 40 minutes, you almost wish the cast would be kind enough to roll right into another performance immediately after, just so you could get another crack at absorbing the language.

In Baierlein's capable hands, the eight actors pay proper homage to Thomas' words, casting a spell, performing a kind of magic and taking us to Llareggub â€" Thomas' infamous reversal of the phrase "bugger all."

There are a few dozen characters in the town, but the entire cast slips easily from one to the other, donning, then shedding, their personas as easily as slipping on a jacket. It's a real pleasure to see capable actors playing multiple roles in a show like this; when you can spot who the actor is about to portray before they even speak based on physical cues alone, you can be certain they are fully invested in the role.

Here Lisa Mumford tightens her mouth down to a bitter line as the nasty Mrs. Pugh. And here comes Stephen R. Kramer as the henpecked Mr. Pugh, bringing his wife her tea, his body curled down onto itself, surrounding the tight ball of black rage he carries beneath the weight of years of abuse: "Here's your arsenic dear. And your weedkiller biscuit . . . Here's your . . . nice tea dear." Because while he rarely thinks of anything other than murdering his wife, he will of course never actually do it.

And here's Sallie Diamond as Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard,

whose propensity for nagging and cleanliness knows no bounds â€" not even death will spare her husbands from her badgering. The dead husbands patiently rattle off the list of chores she has for each of them, then, satisfied, she wraps up the list with one more order: "And before you let the sun in, mind it wipes its shoes."

There's a playful sweetness woven throughout Thomas' work that is tightly knotted to a rather bleak, black humor, and Baierlein and his cast skillfully navigate these tricky waters. And they manage to keep it engaging for the audience physically, as well as verbally; although it is indeed a "play for voices," and as such isn't exactly chock-full of action, Baierlein never lets the cast remain too static for too long. They portray children dancing around a maypole, washerwomen gossiping over a back fence, a blind old boat captain surrounded by the ghosts of his past.

These individual transformations lead to an overall effect of transformation; a snowy Colorado night in February becomes a journey to a warm, rich and very real place on the Welsh seashore, peopled with authentic if slightly nutty characters in whom we see our neighbors, our friends, ourselves.

"Under Milk Wood" ***1/2 (out of four stars)

Lyric poem. Presented by Germinal Stage-Denver, 2450 W. 44th Ave. Written by Dylan Thomas. Directed by Ed Baierlein. Starring Ed Baierlein, Rita Broderick, Sallie Diamond, Stephen R. Kramer, Leroy Leonard, Lisa Mumpton, Owen T. Niland and Alana Opie. Through March 21. 1 hour, 40 minutes. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. $17.75-$21.75. 303-455-7108 or germinalstage.com