At last month's Oregon Shakespeare Festival's press conference I was drawn to Laird Williamson as he sat emitting a Buddha-like radiance. As well he should; he has, for the second time in as many years, staged his own adaptation of Pedro Calderon De La Barca's intense play, Life is a Dream. Williamson spoke of the play's mysticism, its metaphorical themes, and overpowering dark intrigue. I drank in his words with my coffee, not realizing then that a magical experience at the Bowmer Theater was soon to move me.
Life is a Dream is set in and around the mythical kingdom of Polonia where an overwrought, misguided king confesses to his councilors that years before, he imprisoned his only son in a shoreline cave. The king believed his seer's birth prediction that the boy would one day become a monster. (Of course caging someone for over two decades does seem to make this self-fulfilling.) Shortly after the king yields to his courtiers and releases the man-boy on ethical grounds, the young duke, realizing what he's been deprived of all his life, becomes enraged. In response, the king bluntly hurls these words in his face: " You were dead, Sigismundo, dead before you were ever born." Writhing in anguish, Sigismundo spits out, "You have taken my destiny, my soul."
Kevin Kennerly is compelling as Sigismundo the noble savage with the heart of a poet. His jailer and sympathetic friend is Clotaldo, who is caught on the horns of a gripping personal dilemma and played with great sensitivity by Jeffrey King. Vilma Silva (Rosaura) is on an unswerving path of revenge vowing to assassinate the evil rapist, Duke Astolfo. Silva is a lightening bolt of electricity as Rosaura. Her nemesis, the Duke, (Armando Duran) is a demonic malevolent force, so horrifying he'll give you nightmares. Compounding the old king's failure to make amends to his son, he has Sigismundo abducted, drugged and re-chained in his old lair by the hapless pawn, Clotaldo. And here, springing to life, is the pivotal theme of this metaphorical work. Sigismundo is persuaded that his time in court was but a dream, that this cave, this torture is his reality. The premise tickles the imagination and the psyche, and the play is not without ironic humor personified by Robert Vincent Frank as the prince of fools, Bocazas.
Set design by Robert Blackman and Costumes by Deborah M. Dryden add lavish dimension to Williamson's brave direction. The very first scene sets the tone as a breath-taking vision appears: a larger-than-life, glowing horse-beast prances across the stage, and our hearts pound with its noble hooves. The set is both a coastal-like grouping of elevations and also the palace environs. Flanking the stage is a series of eerie and remarkable, transparent and translucent sliding panels.
Make no mistake, this is an unyielding play physically and emotionally for actors (and the audience), but this cast has the stamina and consciousness to make Life is a Dream a presentation audiences won't soon forget.
