Life’s a Dream
at the Chopin Theatre
The premise is reminiscent of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. A great king of Poland, Basilio, reading in the stars that his son will be a tyrannical monster who may kill his father, locks the boy in a tower, where he’s raised essentially as a beast. But Calderon’s aim is not to write a tragedy but to present an allegory for living. The point of the play is not that the son will kill his father but that the king should not have tried to read his future in the stars. The play’s title is also its main message: life’s a dream, so let it go easily, do your duty faithfully, and don’t buck your fate. In fact, when the son gains his freedom he returns not to kill his father but to accept him as the flawed person he is. This theme is cleverly echoed in various subplots, both comic and serious.
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Akalaitis’s cast is strong and clear voiced, performing Barton and Mitchell’s literate, witty translation with remarkable ease. John Reeger is particularly moving as the foolish king: what a joy it is to watch this seasoned actor effortlessly negotiate his part–over the course of the play Basilio goes through almost as many changes as King Lear. And Yvonne Woods handles herself beautifully as Rosaura, the character who passes as a boy one moment, then a girl playing a boy, then a lady of the court, and finally as a sort of Joan of Arc, armed and ready for war.
Her daughter was named Hildegart, presumably after Hildegard von Bingen, the influential abbess and gifted composer who remains to this day a model of intelligent female leadership within the Catholic church. Hildegart Rodriguez too was destined to rule. A gifted writer and orator, she became nationally known while still in her teens for her passionate, well-reasoned essays in favor of progressive causes. But almost to the end of her short life–she died at 19–she was as much a mouthpiece for her mother’s ideas as for her own. When Aurora wasn’t outright telling Hildegart what to believe, she was deciding which books she could and could not read. Rousseau, Voltaire, Marx, and H.G. Wells–then known more for his socialism than for his science fiction–were high on the list. The Bible was forbidden. Eventually even the best-behaved daughter would have rebelled against such close monitoring.
