A new translation of the ~other,~ lesser-known, Auto Sacramentale Calderon
~Life is a Dream~ was performed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine here in
Upper Manhattan, a couple of years ago. Coincident with another thread on
PoetryEtc here, it was directed and co-translated by a young Jesuit, Fr. George
Drance, who'd traveled extensively with Andrew Serban's Greek tragedy
productions.
This other ~Life~ was the ~really~ religious-philosophical one: Fall of Adam,
but (perhaps unique in this omission) an Adam and Eden without an Eve! The
temptation and Fall takes place directly between Adam the the Serpent. (Adam's
pre-figleaf, pre-"God made coats of skins and clothed them" innocence [Gen.
3:21] in paradise made a perfect vehicle for casting a drop-dead GQ model's
body actor in the role, appropriate to Manhattan ~Naked Boys Singing~ theater
tastes [title of a musical revue, later staged at Australia's Glebe
Valhalla].) God appears in trinitarian form: George staged these three
mysterious God figures beautifully, with gigantic Bread & Roses-type puppets
manned with poles, almost fifty such puppets, towering over the audience under
the cavernous cathedral ceiling. He used the full gamut of "post-modern"
theater techniques on this: morphed celestial electronic voices for the three
"Gods," "site-specific" features such as entering toward the performance space
along the cathedral's long walkways where hooded "living statues" stood
motionless much like in Cocteau's ~Belle et la Bete,~ etc.
In some ways, this other ~Life~ is more startling and impressive than the
familiar masterpiece
http://waukesha.uwc.edu/ur/news2001/news_01252001.htm (on the puppeteer)
http://www.fordham.edu/theatre/faculty.html (drance [scroll down])
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Erminia Passannanti wrote:
> Caldero De La Barca(January 17, 1600) : Life is a Dream
>
> http://www.tsufl.edu/library/7/literature/life_is_a_dream.htm
>
> This is the site where you can find in translation Calderon De La Barca's
> masterpiece, Life is a dream, (a Spanish play of deep religious and
> philosophical meaning, where in a farsesque way the reality of the senses -
> and its dirt - is presented as a shadow.)
>
> Erminia
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