LALifeisaDream

Laura Alexander THEA 2100 Richmond Performance Critique 1 //Life Is a Dream// Originally produced in 1635 by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, //Life Is a Dream// focuses on the conflict between free will and fate in the life of the fictional Prince of Poland, Segismundo. However, in this production the play exhibits a slight twist as the actors perform the main plot as if it were a fantasy within a fantasy. Superficial and slightly pretentious, the University of Georgia’s production of //Life Is a Dream// leaves much to be desired. Despite considering that I observed the play on opening night, the mistakes and shortcomings of the production seem irreconcilable. In addition to the needlessly confusing storyline, several factors contributed to the failure of this play; including the poor acting, the lack of lighting and scenery, and bumbling staging. For the majority of the first half of //Life Is a Dream,// both the characters and the audience seemed completely lost about the plot. An abundance of secondary characters all introduced in succession led to a convoluted series of relationships that the cast attempted to clarify but did so inadequately. As the play went on, the audience eventually catches up but not before it begins to lose interest due to their confusion, at least in my opinion. Odd narrative scenes with what I can only describe as interpretive dance felt awkward and only added to the overall complexity of the play. For example, towards the beginning of the play during which the developers of the new virtual system set up the Kingdom scenario, the musicians and the developers dance, sing, and speak the lines that describe the royal family’s predicament and history. While the actors proved that they possessed proficient vocal skills, the random dancing and flamboyancy only distracted from the storyline. As an audience member, rather than concentrating on the background narrative, I found myself bewildered at the sudden transition into the fantasy world. Throughout the play, the cast paused in order to ask each other to explain the happenings of the play, obviously in order to clarify things for the sake of the audience. For instance, whenever a new mother would appear, of which there were many, a cast member would stop the action in the fantasy and say “is she dead too?” Due to lack of costumes and effects, the production necessitated these interruptions in order to maintain the play’s coherence. In my opinion, this degraded the effectiveness of the play, and functioned as a handicap for the entire production because it required that each character switch back and forth between their fantasy and reality personas and effectively impeded the progression of the story. From the beginning, the main cast’s timing of lines was completely off, especially those of the male developer, Mr. Boots, played by Malcolm Campbell-Taylor. More than once, this actor attempted to talk over another actor’s lines and as a result his exchanges with these characters appeared unnatural and forced. Again, one may attribute this to the fact that this occurred on opening night and the coinciding jitters, but usually the actors become more comfortable throughout the play. Unfortunately, many of the actors missed this opportunity during this showing of //Life Is a Dream.// Whether it was due to poor staging or said jitters, actors also often stumbled or bumped into each other, when they obviously did not intend to do so. For example, in the opening scene, during which Mr. Boots fussed over the involvement of the musicians in the project, he bumped into his fellow actor while attempting to storm across the stage in frustration. This mistake took away from his portrayal of anger, and interrupted both of the actor’s performances. Similar mistakes occurred later in the play, most likely due to nervousness, as stated before. Reflecting on the acting issues observed during opening night, I must consider the chance that poor casting played a role in the resulting production. While the director, Dr. Marla Carlson, chose well for most of the roles that required cross-dressing under the notion that a performance of gender exists, it seems as if some other roles may have suffered from miscasting. Without doubting Dr. Carlson’s professional opinion, as an audience member the off-putting performance of Nathan Cowling in his role of David and Clorilene II can be attributed to either miscasting or poor acting. Throughout the play, Cowling’s character’s relationship with the first clown, Tara, in which he constantly expressed his exasperation with her silly tangents and behavior, felt overdone and hackneyed. As they sat together on the side of the stage, Tara often made senseless statements after which David would roll his eyes or scold her silently. Combined with the odd dancing and narrating scenes, his execution of these frequent interactions proved almost exhausting after a while, especially in conjunction with the other clown’s jokes, executed by Will Allen in the roles of Peter and Clotaldo. However, in reference to Allen’s performance which admittedly improved throughout the play, the poor reactions from the audience could have resulted from the lack of chemistry between the characters and the pacing of the play, especially at the beginning when Peter’s jokes introduce his habit of mixing up idioms. His delivery of these lines took some getting used to, in terms of being able to differentiate between whether or not a line was pure nonsense or a clever mix-up. Returning to the concept of cross-dressing and its significance in the play, despite the lack of costuming the actors readily grasped the idea of switching gender roles and sufficiently achieved a convincing performance, regardless of previous commentary on their acting skills. In particular, Jennifer Elmore as Segismundo transformed into the brute of a prince quite well, and coincidentally she delivered the best performance in the production, followed closely by the actor that played her character’s father, Dane Aléjandro. Although the play lacked many effects such as lighting and costuming, Elmore’s performance often benefitted from special spotlighting during her soliloquies, in which she pondered upon and cursed her existence as a guiltless prisoner. With emphasis on her body language, the lighting provided a focus for the audience as well as a mood in order to more proficiently capture her anguish and ire. Her performance and Aléjandro’s alone (which also featured spotlights during soliloquies) elicited an emotional response from my observance of the production, with the help of appropriate staging coupled with their capable acting abilities. Besides these two examples, however, the rest of the production lacked changes in lighting, and possessed no scenery at all, due to the concept of virtual reality and the important function of imagination for both the audience and the play’s characters. Disagreeing with the decision to rely only on the audience’s capacity to imagine the scene and the actors’ abilities to adequately facilitate their imaginings, I believe that the production may have benefitted from at least some background images. However, one must concede that the entire concept of the play, that “//Life Is a Dream,”// almost demands the production to try to force the audience into imagining the scenes for themselves, further emphasizing the role of the imagination in personal dreams. Rather than decorating the stage during transitions, the characters of Mr. Boots, Mrs. Straps, David, and Tara would describe the setting in just enough detail so that the audience could envision the gist of the scene while simultaneously creating their own personal images, such as when they depicted the mountain on which they found Prince Segismundo imprisoned. Perhaps this interpretation of the play would work with a more professional cast, but this production may have required at least some amount of scenery as opposed to none at all. In spite of its obvious shortcomings, UGA’s production of //Life Is a Dream// did in fact succeed in conveying the message of the ability of free will to overcome fate. While King Basilio remained convinced for the majority of the production that his secret son Segismundo would bring death and destruction to the kingdom, his decision to test fate ultimately led to Segismundo’s legitimate acquisition of the royal crown. Contributing greatly to the success of this element of the play, Aléjandro and Elmore’s performances proved crucial to this achievement of the production, for they served as the main subjects of the theme. Though the effectiveness of the performance may have gained from remaining more faithful to the original production, Dr. Carlson provides a new interpretation of the play in order to create a more modern setting. However, their decision to set it in a fantasy game almost negates her efforts. Keeping in mind that I saw this play on opening night and that it paled in comparison to the recent production of Alfred Hitchcock’s //The 39 Steps,// the University of Georgia’s production of Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s //Life Is a Dream// proved disappointing after observing the potential of Georgia’s performing arts students and faculty. While the lack of resources in //The 39 Steps// added to the impressiveness of the production, the corresponding issue with //Life Is a Dream// resulted in a bland overall performance, for they lacked even basic stage props. While the opening night’s performance failed to receive a standing ovation, //Life Is a Dream// still served as a welcome albeit labored distraction from the regular routine of a UGA student.