Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Direction and Musical Arrangements - Joseph Hendel
Scenic Design - Sam Keamy-Minor
Costumes - Chris Flagstad
Lighting - Justin Beets
Sound - MaeAnn Ross
PSM - Nico Lambros-Smith

photos by Sam Keamy-Minor and Manny Rothenberg

For my 2nd year MFA production at UCSD, I directed Life is a Dream by Calderon in the La Jolla Playhouse’s Forum Theater. The starting point for my concept was the idea that “everything collapses”, including the fantasy structures of our egos. Drawing on Lacan’s notion of the unary trait and the dissolution and reformation of identity through catastrophe and re-investment, I crafted a world out of balance, existing on the verge of destruction. We used a raked stage at the steepest grade regulations would allow and employed a high-intensity physical acting style which heightened the sense of imminent chaos and danger. The synthetic materials and cardboard of the costumes and set were regularly torn, upended, and kicked aside with casual disregard, and we alternated delicate emotions with sudden, destructive ones. The ironic re-occurances of failure and lack inside Calderon’s twisting plot intersected with our colorful child’s fantasy world to produce an unpredictable mashup of desire and emotion without stability , a “queer art of failure” clown show for adults.