Life is a Dream
Edinburgh International Festival, Royal Lyceum Theatre

IT is difficult to see what justifies the presence of this production of Calderon’s 1630 drama at the festival, or what motive underlies the performance itself.

Briefly, a young prince is locked in isolation by his father and deprived of socialisation. Reintroduced experimentally to society he goes berzerk, unleashing a repressed drive for sex and violence. Locked up again, he is liberated by those who oppose his father’s rule and becoming king he, in turn, imprisons his liberators. 

Every turn of fortune or misfortune is contemplated by the characters as having the quality of a dream. And that’s it.

The play is simple and presented here in a simple way by characters in 20th century dress (with swords) before a screen of doors.

But what’s the point? 

While I am sure it is beneficial to Spanish schoolchildren to see the production of a set text, some additional contemporary relevance is needed to hold an international audience, but this production shies away from making any such reference.

The military fatigues recall Volodymyr Zelensky’s preferred attire, but there is no coherent link to the return of war to Europe and the reasons for it.

Alfredo Novel’s energetic performance as the prince Sigismundo demonstrates the how his newly unshackled drives unleash the appetite of a would-be demagogue, but the connection to the rise of Spain’s far-right Vox party remains off stage.

And the Royal Lyceum itself staged a far more eloquent and passionate production of the same play just 18 months ago, that zoomed in on the play as a treatise on mental health, using Jo Clifford’s brilliant 1998 translation.

At that moment the audience could identify with Calderon’s contrived premise in a startlingly contemporary way.

It was the first full production after lockdown and the crazy Sigismundo represented all of us as we emerged from our own experience of enforced isolation.

We could identify with him, and there was the real sense of a warning in his awful capitulation to courtly convention.

It was both a superior production, and far more relevant, but it was doomed to three weeks in rep and oblivion.

Frankly, it would have made more sense to revive that, and perform it in English.

Runs until August 27. For more information go to eif.co.uk.