Rough Magic's production of Calderón's Life's a Dream - April 18th 2008

Theatre review: Life's a Dream produced by Rough Magic Theatre Company, performed in the Project Arts Theatre in Dublin, Ireland.

I was in audience for the April 18th performance of Life's a Dream and had been looking forward to this production as Rough Magic are, in my opinion, one of the most innovative theatre companies working in Ireland. I also love this play, unfortunately the performance itself was disappointing.

The space upstairs in Project Arts theatre was filled with smoke and o dry ice to convey some sort of dream-like effect. There were two climbing frames at either end of the space and the audience sat in traverse on the other two sides. Unfortunately a combination of elements made this performance more of a nightmare than a dream.

The first element was ... well ... the shouting. Frankly, Segismundo's (Paul Reid's) violent and angry dialogue descended almost in every instance into an unintelligible howling, growling or screeching. The threat of violence and the beautiful translation of the play were lost into occasionally inaudible scenes. Secondly there was live music, but there was no reason for the music to be live. In fact my opinion of the position of the musician (Raymond Scannell) sums up many of my problems with the play's aesthetic.

It was a case of neither nor, the musician was not present enough nor hidden enough. If his presence was necessary to the performance's dramaturgy he needed to be highlighted more. If his presence wasn't then there was no reason to have live music at all. Similarly the second half of the performance (when Segismundo's revolution begins) was an uncomfortable mix of realistic twentieth-first century military with a hint of Escape from LA. What looked like oil barrels were used as lamp shades for the over-hanging lights and also as a dais for Segismundo to stand upon.

Recently I've seen photo-real contemporary military costumes beginning used in performances in Dublin. Here Astolfo (Ronan Leahy) is dressed in a Russian federation army uniform and the rebels (Siobhán McSweeney, Will O'Connell, Mark Rogers, Shane O'Reilly and Daragh MacMathuna) were dressed in commando camouflage uniforms. The effect was simple. Coupled with the fact that I had seen Selina Cartmell's production of MacBeth where MacBeth and Banquo began the performance dressed like Jack Bauer from 24. Perhaps Irish theatre practitioners feel the audience wont understand that these characters are military figures or rebels unless they have AK47s and camo-gear but personally I think it's over the top. When I saw camouflage uniformed soldiers abseiling from the ceiling in Life's a Dream I felt like I was being hit over the head by somebody saying "look they're soldiers." Whether it is felt that this reflects the "mediatized" status of the military today or is a comment on current events I don't know - but it comes across as a quick answer to a question of costume. To my mind unless performances need to demonstrate totalitarianism or a totalitarian atmosphere realistic military garb feels like a way out of an aesthetic decision rather than one in its own right.

What impressed me was Barry McGovern's performance as Clotaldo and Peter Daly's as Clarin; I also enjoyed Hillary O'Shaughnessy as Rosaura. But on the whole I came away unsatisfied. The decisions were half decisions - whether that was down to the Director or to the group or due to lack of rehearsal time it's hard to say but the effect cost the performance its coherence and its impact. In the end I was left to dream of other things...

--Cailil

It begins

And so it begins...
my first blog and hopefully it will start to grow over time.