GF+Life+Is+a+Dream

Gemma Formby
 * Life Is a Dream Critique**

“Life Is a Dream” was a very different play than what I expected. The lack of props as well as the abrupt transition from ‘real life’ to the dream in which the actors get lost in their characters left a lot up to the audience in terms of visualization, making the play a bit hard to follow for me.

I went into “Life is a Dream” with no idea of what to expect, aside from the program’s short passage stating that it was a “new adaptation of the classic Golden Age Spanish masterpiece from the 1630’s” that “explores the conflict between fate and destiny”. When I was seated, the stage looked as if it were being used as a classroom. Everything was black and there were a couple rows of metal, foldable chairs but nothing else. The play opened with two characters dressed in business clothes, which contrasts with Tara, who carries around drumsticks, and David’s more casual clothing, perhaps to establish the latter pair as the clowns in the play. It is later revealed that the more professional are comically called Mr. Boots and Ms. Straps.

The other characters are introduced a few minutes after Mr. boots and Ms. Straps are introduced. These characters are mostly men dressed in business casual clothing. Also, perhaps on purpose, all of the ties that these men were wearing were striped diagonally in the same direction (top left to bottom right) and mostly contained the main colors of the clothing that they would all soon wear during the ‘experiment’ that Mr. Boots and Ms. Straps have in store for them. The actors were all given clothing to wear to act out the scene concerning the Prince of Poland and his right to the throne. Everyone wore either a skirt or a vest of the color red, blue, or purple, perhaps to emphasize the royalty of some of the characters. Some men were chosen for female roles (wearing a skirt over their clothes) and some women were chose for male roles. One major example of this was Jennifer Elmore as Segismundo, the prince who was banished in the tower. The way that Jennifer Elmore was introduced was quite interesting and was different from any of the other ways that characters were introduced. She was pulled onto the stage by one of the actors despite her pleas that she was “not an actor, just an audience member”. Her transition from an audience member to an actor was quite abrupt. I feel like that since they made an effort to put her in the audience and pretend that she was not an actor, they should have played up on her uncertainty. She should have seemed more uncomfortable on stage (since she is apparently only an audience member) until she is lost in her character. The whole thing just seemed forced and awkward. I understand that the cast wanted to keep the interaction with the audience to maintain their attention, but although the idea was good, the execution was poor.

Because of the lack of props, much was left up to the imagination of the actors and the audience. At the beginning, Mr. Boots and Ms. Straps were showing their clients their new product on a screen of some sort. The actors had to pretend to look at it in awe. Some were successful, but some of the actors fell flat in their attempts. I imagine that it is difficult to create an emotion without anything or anyone to look at, but it still took away from the performance. The actors only had the chairs, their royal outfits, and a few small props like swords and the rope that bound Segismundo in the tower. Therefore, much was left up to the imagination, which tied into the whole ‘life is a dream’ part of the play. There were many subtle things as well as not so subtle things throughout the play that mirrored this theme. The first was obviously the way that the actors get consumed in their characters. At first, most are uncomfortable with their roles but soon they become that character, and the men in business suits at the beginning have been lost. Kenneth Franklin is now King Basilion. Jerry Paul is now Astoflo. The woman taken from the audience is now Segismundo. Soon, the audience forgets about the former characters and is also lost in the tale of Prince Segismundo’s right to the throne. As the play was coming to a close, I found myself confused when the characters changed back into their original characters. I had forgotten that they were never those characters. Another example of the way that the play played on ‘life is a dream’ is how Segismundo became aware of his royalty. A prophecy had told King Basilio that his son would be a tyrant as a king, so he had his son locked away and never told him of his true right to the throne. They decided to drug Segismundo and bring him to the court and show him his true value, but, since he would be drugged, they could take him back to his tower afterwards, and he would think that it was all a wild dream. But, Segismundo finds out the truth, but he is uncertain at many points if it is just a dream. Because of this, his sense of right and wrong is lost. This is very accurate in how a dream works. What is right and what is wrong twist together so that decisions are not made based on rationality. Segismundo is caught between his power and what he knows is right. In the end, he decided that he is responsible for what he dreams and even if he is dreaming, that he should “strive to do the right thing”, one of the morals of the play. Another example of the theme of ‘life is but a dream’ is at the end of the play, when the characters end the story (comically changing the ending so that different couples end up together) and the enchantment is gone. The characters are angry at Mr. Boots and Ms. Straps for wasting their time on something so trivial, to which the two respond with how engrossed with the story everyone was, proving the point that the product/exercise worked. The two skip off of the stage through the back door singing “merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream”, which I thought was good. I would have preferred this as an ending to the actual ending involving Tara and David and Schrodinger’s cat. Although it was cute and funny, it didn’t seem as powerful because I didn’t think that the play was comical. I felt that the ending needed to reflect the play as a whole and leave the audience with something powerful.

I did like the lighting that was involved in “Life Is a Dream”. Because the dimensions of the stage were so small, especially front to back, the lighting effects were crucial. The lights were brightest shining on the front half of the stage. This created a foreground and a background where there were none and made the stage appear bigger that it actually was. Lastly, I would like to comment on which actor was my favorite and why he was my favorite. My favorite was the actor who played King Basilio and Kenneth Franklin. He was one of the only actors who seemed completely comfortable on stage. His voice and his presence were very powerful to me. Even when he was not speaking, he still acted, which was something some actors were not good at. He also played both serious and comedic roles well.

Overall, I did like the ideas put into “Life Is a Dream”. The theme of fate and how one can do the right thing even within a dream or situation is a powerful one. I only wish that the execution of these ideas were better. The cast was gifted with several strong actors, but there were also a few that really brought down the cast as a whole. This play can’t be compared to “39 Steps” because they are two totally different genres, but I did feel like “39 Steps” was a more likeable play. That being said, the cast and director did well with the small amount of props that they had and the performance did entertain and educate through the historical story of the Polish prince.