Rough Magic presents the Irish Première of
Life Is A Dream
Pedro Calderón De La Barca in a translation by Jo Clifford
Dream of a world in which a father is so afraid of the power of his son that he locks him up in a tower the minute he is born. In which a man falls asleep locked up in a tower and wakes up to discover he's in a palace being treated like a king. In which a woman is so angry with her lover for betraying her that she dresses as a man and rides all the way from Moscow to Poland just to get even with him.
All these extraordinary events don't really reflect the outer world in which we have to live out our daily lives; but they do offer us a way in which to think about the poetic and mysterious world of our inner lives.
Written in the 1630s in the Spanish Empire's prolonged death agonies, the play was written for one of the most amazingly artistically and commercially successful theatres that has ever been - the public theatre in seventeenth century Madrid.
Production Credits
Cast
Peter Daly - Clarin
Andrea Irvine - Estrella
Mark Lambert - Basilio
Ronan Leahy - Astolfo
Daragh MacMathuna - Soldier/Servant
Barry McGovern - Clotaldo
Siobhan McSweeny - Soldier/Servant
Will O' Connell - Soldier/Servant
Shane O' Reilly - Soldier/Servant
Hilary O' Shaughnessy - Rosaura
Paul Reid - Segismundo
Mark Rogers - Soldier/Servant
Raymond Scannell - Musician
Crew
Director - Tom Creed
Set and Costume Designer - Conor Murphy
Lighting Designer - Sinéad McKenna
Composer - Denis Clohessy
Fight Director - Paul Burke
Assistant Director - Aoife Spillane-Hinks