Friday, November 22

Tag: Life is A Dream

Life is a Dream – Lyceum Theatre
Scotland

Life is a Dream – Lyceum Theatre

Co-produced by Cheek by Jowl, Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico (CNTC Madrid) and LAZONA; in collaboration with the Barbican, London and Scène Nationale d’ALBI-Tarn, France The only time I saw a production by Cheek by Jowl was in 1981, when the company was an infant. I don’t remember the play I saw, but I remember the company because the production was jaw-droppingly good. For this reason, I chose to review, decades later, Life is a Dream. In this classic Spanish tale, a prince is released from imprisonment to test whether the prophesy that he will be a tyrant, will, in fact, come true. The play is listed as one of the forty greatest plays of all time. It was performed in Spanish with English surtitles. First published in 1636, you could be forgiven for wondering if it might...
Life is A Dream – Barbican
London

Life is A Dream – Barbican

Life without consequences. Life as theatre. The great stage of the world. Life as a dream, and dreams as dreams. Welcome to the undying and unrelentlessly current world of Calderon de la Barca. In the huge stage of the Barbican, the companies Cheek by Jowl, LAZONA and Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico join forces to bring this oneiric classic to life, with a staging irreverent and bold, but thoughtfully provoking and challenging. Directed by Declan Donellan, and Design by Nick Ornerod, the stage is very simple yet effective in its metaphor: the audience is received by a wall of doors that will open and close during the performance, to let characters in, but also to hide and show the farce that is about to be shown. The known story of Segismundo, played by Alfredo Noval born ill-fat...