THE Royal Lyceum's 1998 festival production of Calderon's Life is a Dream fell on the Barbican like a bombshell. The Barbican has hosted some extraordinary pieces of theatre in its time, but few have matched Calixto Bieito and the Lyceum for making such universal themes seem quite so pertinently nuanced. At times, Bieito's stark, graphic, and very post-modern production with the gaunt, skin-headed George Anton in full cry as young Segismundo baying for freedom and his liberty, and the populace demanding release from being ruled by ''foreigners'', seemed like a cry of Scottish nationalism, something out of Irvine Welsh.
That's a remarkable
make-over for a play first performed 350 years ago. Of course, a sombre political dimension is also there. Like a disconcerting companion piece to Schiller's Don Carlos (excellently revived by
Gale Edwards at Stratford
and due to reach the
Barbican in January), Calderon's Life is a Dream addresses issues of realpolitik.
But it is, even more, a fascinating, pre-Freudian study in paternal jealousy, in parental upbringing, and, going further than Schiller, the metaphysical exploration of how we create the thing we most fear: by locking up his son Segismundo, Basilio (the great Jeffery Kissoon) has created the ugly, violent son of his worst predictions.
Bieito doesn't make it a comfortable evening. The headlong tempo, John Clifford's uncompromising translation, and the confrontation of the audience as the house lights go up and a great mirror, hung above the stage for most of the proceedings, swings to
catch our reflections, taxes and challenges. Ultimately, though, the ambition is thrilling - an aggressive, nihilistic Gorbals Boy
Greek tragedy, at once mucky, inspirational, handsomely produced, and utterly terrifying.
n Life is a Dream is at the Barbican until Saturday.
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