Life Is A Dream
A play by Calderon de la Barca
Directed by Jean-Pierre Mignon
Performed by the Australian Nouveau Theatre
At Melbourne's Gasworks Theatre until September 27
Part of the Melbourne International Festival
Reviewed by Peter Boyle
"What is this life? A frenzy, an illusion, a shadow, a delirium, a fiction? The greatest good's but little, and this life is a dream, and dreams are only dreams", spruiks Segismundo, a prince condemned for the first half of his life to secret imprisonment and ignorance of his heritage because his father, the king, read in the stars that his only son would become a tyrant. But one day the ageing king develops a bad conscience (and curiosity about the malleability of horoscopic predictions) and decides to give his son a trial run as prince.
Segismundo wakes up in the palace and finds himself a pampered prince. He is told the story behind his imprisonment but also warned that his new reality may be but a dream. Segismundo fluffs his trial run and promptly wakes up back in his cell, prompting the speculation on the nature of life quoted above.
This strange plot concocted by 16th century Spanish playwright Calderon (belonging to the generation after Cervantes) presents a taste of the richness and sophistication of the cultural "Golden Age" that Spain entered even as this once mighty empire began to crumble.
These days, one might be tempted to blame "technology" or "mass culture" for spreading uncertainty about what is real and what is not. Hallucinogenic drugs, computerised images, the "box" and other manipulative mass media would seem to be prime suspects for promoting mass solipsism. But Calderon's play shows that the notion predates modern technology, even if it was only the aristocracy who had the time or energy to engage in such speculation. He also exposes the power relations at play behind the instilling of this notion and the destructiveness of arbitrary will.
In the play, the king deliberately places the notion in Segismundo's mind that his awakening as a prince may be but a dream, in an attempt to frighten him into obedience. But Segismundo reasons, at first, that if his new reality is a dream, then he can do whatever he wants with little regard for the consequences.
Second time around, Segismundo does the right thing, but for an even stranger motive. If I am dreaming, he appears to reason, I might as well make it a good dream by doing the honourable thing. Well, I'd stick to this story too, if it decided between prison and the crown. I think Segismundo opted for believing in reality even while denying it with Jesuitical deviousness.
In his final soliloquy (chock-a-block with philosophising), Segismundo gives a surprisingly modern psychological explanation of how social oscope, make the tyrant. Further, he argues, because of free will a person is not a prisoner of his social conditioning. All this in a 16th century play. On opening night the cast, who performed very well, seemed to sigh with amazement as they took their bows.
Calderon first studied theology, law and logic under the Jesuits but led a worldlier life and became very popular as a playwright in the court of Philip IV. In his old age, and after the death of his mistress, he became a priest.