TS+Life+is+a+Dream

__//Life is a Dream//__

The production of //Life is a Dream// that was presented by the University theatre was an adaptation written by Dr. Marla Carlson, who was also the director for the production. Carlson's adaptation brings the story of //Life is a Dream// to modern times by presenting it as a virtual reality experience that the characters are wrapped up in. When discussing her inspirations for the adaptation in the program, Dr. Carlson cites a work of Cervantes in which there is a traveling show that is only visible to those of pure Christian blood. Carlson takes this concept and modernizes it by having the performance open with two characters, Mr. Boots and Mrs. Straps, showing off a machine to a group of possible investors. The machine creates images that are unbelievably realistic; however, one can only see them if they have reached their place in life based only on their own hard work, rather than their birth. In order to show off the machine, Mr. Boots and Mrs. Straps place the investors within the world of the play //Life is a Dream// and has the investors play all of the roles in the play. At first, this opening scene seemed like an unnecessary addition to the play, but as I thought back on the performance, I began to realize why Carlson combined the ideas of Cervantes with //Life is a Dream//. This production of //Life is a Dream// did not have a set in the traditional meaning of the term. The only items on stage were a few small, folding chairs situated on each side of the stage to provide actors not involved in a particular scene somewhere to sit, and a black trunk that was used to hold the machine from the beginning of the play and the few capes and skirts that were used as the costumes. As an audience member, I found this minimal use set pieces to be boring. The performance seemed dull without any set pieces to place what was happening in front of me into context. This meant that I had to work more as an audience member, which created a disconnect between the performance and me. As I was leaving the theatre, I felt dissatisfied with the performance; however, when I looked back on the performance, I realized that I was missing the glaringly obvious purpose of the lack of any major set pieces. There was no set, because the performance took place 'inside of' the world created by the machine, and Carlson wanted to imply that no one in the audience had gotten to where they are purely by way of their own hard work. Looking back, this seems like an incredibly obvious concept to me, but I can also understand why I did not realize it while watching the performance. The opening of the play and the rest of the performance seemed like two unrelated events in my mind because there was very little mention of the actual situation in which the play was occurring. At the beginning of the performance of //Life is a Dream// proper is was obvious that the businessmen were actually performing the play because they looked confused and were being shown what to do by the other characters. This confusion is especially prominent with Franklin, the head businessman, who is told that he is to play King Basilio. He expresses concern about playing that role, but is simply told to read the script, and when his character enters the play, he acts as though he would if he were actually performing //Life is a Dream//. If Carlson had carried on some of the confusion seen in the businessmen, I think that the opening scene of the play would have stayed on the audience's mind, which would allow them to better understand the performance as whole while they are watching it. For many characters in the performance within the performance, Carlson decided to have them play the opposite sex. The most prominent example of this is Segismundo, who is played by a female actor. I am confused as to why Carlson decided to this in the performance, because it did not seem to alter the performance in any significant way. In the program, Carlson says that the cross-dressing of Rosaura in the original work//,////Life is a Dream,// inspired her gross gendered casting, and she felt that doing so furthered the idea that life is a dream by making the play even more unrealistic. In theory, I agree with Carlson's ideas regarding the cross-gendered casting, but in practice it did not affect me as an audience member, and I would attribute this ineffectiveness to the lack of costumes. Many of the characters in the play simply wore modern clothes with either a simple skirt of cape tied on to indicate which gender they were representing in the performance, so while the actor who played Mr. Boots played a female character in their performance of //Life is a Dream//, it did not have any impact on the audience because the only thing that signified him as a female was a skirt that was tied around his waist. If the costumes had been more fully fledged, then perhaps the cross-dressing would have been more shocking to the audience, and Carlson would have achieved her goal of getting the audience to realize that the play takes place somewhere that is not quite reality. If you think of the costumes in the same vein that one thinks about the set, then the lack of costumes makes sense; however, I think the production would have felt more polished and entertaining had there been actual costumes created for the production. The story of //Life is a Dream// is a very dark one, yet throughout the play, there were comical moments that did not seem to have a place in this narrative. At the beginning of the play, David and Tara, Mr. Boots and Mrs. Straps' assistants, were acting as clown characters. They were portrayed as incompetent assistants who were also musicians, and at one point, they even began playing a song, which was portrayed on stage by the two actors pantomiming playing instruments. This scene was meant to be comical, but it came across as to me as the director trying to get cheap laughs from the audience. Then, as the characters began to perform //Life is a Dream//, Tara and David became serious characters, with no indication to their previous roles as clown characters. This sudden change felt jarring to me. Why establish them as clown characters if you only intend to use them for a brief moment? There is another clown, named Clarence Jackson, who is a member of the group of businessmen who are looking to purchase the machine. When the characters beging to perform //Life is a Dream// he takes on the role of Clarin, the clown character in Calderon's original work. Carlson gave Clarin a modern sense of humor that I found to be very similar to that employed by Tara and David; however, I found his humor to be less tiresome simply because his character was a part of the original work rather than something inserted into the adaptation for no apparent reason. As a whole, I found the comedy in the performance to be very confusing to me as an audience member. One moment, there would be an outlandish and comical scene, then the next moment would be a somber one, and I feel that if Carlson had decided to emphasize one or the other, the production would have been quite good. Instead, it was left in the awkward space in between that left me feeling uncomfortable as an audience member. Overall, I feel that the cast of this production performed very well, with the actors who played Segismundo and Mr. Boots/Clorilene standing out to me in particular. The actor who played Segismundo gave him a commanding stage presence that I feel perfectly suited the type of character that Segismundo is, and she was also able to portray his softer side in a very masterful way. This especially stood out to me during Segismundo's soliloquy after he is thrown back into prison. Her portrayal of the complex emotions that someone would feel after coming to the life changing conclusions that Segismundo is arriving at during that scene was very convincing. I was also very impressed with the dance that Segismundo performed with Clorilene. The dance was very well choreographed, and the actors performed it with great fluidity. The actor who played Clorilene did an excellent job serving as a sort of narrator for the play at hand. He used a somber voice and blank expression that added weight to the already morbid events occurring onstage. The actor also did an excellent job of portraying the somewhat off kilter Mr. Boots. The rest of the cast had good chemistry, which was especially evident during the group dance, which required a lot of coordination between the members of the cast to be pulled off correctly, and I feel as though they did a wonderful job. Despite my feelings towards the antics of Clarin, I feel as though the actor who played him was perfectly suited for the role, and I feel as though he had the opportunity to add a lot of his own personality to his character. With this production of Life is a Dream, Carlson tried to create a modern spin that would allow audience members to connect to a classic, albeit little known play, but I feel that she came just shy of her goal. The idea to introduce the works of Cervantes was an interesting one; however, the implementation seemed to fall short. Rather than causing it to feel unique or to standout, Carlson's attempt to integrate comedy into a traditionally dramatic work left the piece feeling disjointed, and showed a lack of unity usually found in quality productions.