Spicy Witch Productions (Rebecca Weiss, Artistic Director), a feminist theater company, is presenting a new translation of a classic play (Life Is But A Dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, translated by Shawn Morgenlander) and a new play on similar themes (Merrily Merrily by Iris Dauterman)
I had the pleasure of seeing Life Is But A Dream, the 17th Century Spanish play joyously brought to life by director Anaïs Koivisto. How to make this play "feminist"? For starters, there is already a young woman disguised as a man. This production changes a King into a Queen and casts a non-binary actor as the charming jester, makes the tale of violent jockeying for power even funnier, and vive la difference. Rosaura (Isabelle Russo) is headed towards a castle in Poland, stoked to right an unspecified wrong, when she meets the whimsical Clarion (Dani Martineck). Together they stumble upon a castle in the depths of whose dungeon wails the enchained Sigmund (Stephen Zuccaro). Why is he there, the newcomers ask. Because I was born, says he. That's actually close to the truth, as Queen Clorilene (Dominique Jeanmarie) recounts: Sigmund is heir to the throne of Poland but a prophecy predicts he will be a royal pain in the ass, should be ever be crowned. Yet, after seeing the squabble between Estella (Katie Rose Krueger) and Astolfo (Patrick Chang), next-in-line noble cousins who consider getting married so they can reign together, the Queen decides it's worth taking Sigmund out of the bullpen. If he is a shoddy monarch, they will give him the royal flush, put him back in the basement, and tell him he imagined it all. Thus is the title elucidated. Except, from a sight of Rosaura's rapier, Sigmund's jailer Clotaldo (Nick Bombicino) deduces Rosaura's secret identity and the part he will play in her future.
The plot doesn't really need to be complicated, and, like a Spicy Witch getting hold of a Calderón, it comes off quite enchanting. Like Sigmund himself, it quickly becomes a no-brainer that the vicious young man must needs be incarcerated. Within a minute of his elevation, he throws a servant out the window (distant shrieks and thuds relay this to the audience). Yet, going back to no-brainers, the Slavic peasants decide (years before Dostoyevsky) that their idiot should be in charge. The Queen takes arms against a sea of peasants and by opposing them nearly ends herself. And yet, through some mysterious revelations, the parties come to an accord and happiness and a new Golden Age (Spain was in need of one at that point) are proclaimed. The only character to die is handsome jester Clarion, perhaps as a quick note of thanks to Shakespeare.
