Courtesy/ISC

ISC News:

ISC Santa Fe presents La Vida Es Sueno, a Long Dead But Well Read dramatic reading event at 7 p.m., Aug. 29 at Teatro Paraguas, 3205 Calle Marie.

Directed by Alejandro Amundah, actors arrive in the morning to read the play together, create staging together in the afternoon, and perform with scripts in hand in the evening.

La Vida Es Sueno has been called, “the supreme example of Spanish Golden Age”. A drama by Pedro Calderón de la Barca dated around 1630, the play is an allegory on the mystery of life. Its protagonist is Segismundo, Prince of Poland, who has been imprisoned in a tower by his father, King Basilio, following a prophecy that the prince would bring disaster to the country and death to the King.

Basilio briefly frees Segismundo, but when the prince goes on a rampage, the king imprisons him again, persuading him that it was all a dream. The play’s central themes are the nature of reality, conflict between free will and fate, father and son, and one’s honor. It remains one of Calderón’s best-known works and  is listed as one of the 40 greatest plays of all time in The Independent.

This dramatic reading will lean into the magic acts of dream and play, with the stage at Teatro as a bedroom, mid-sleepover. Tickets $10 at the door.