Cheek by Jowl proposes a popular and current version of 'Life is a dream'

Calderón's great classic Life is a dream is the proposal of the English company Cheek by Jowl that is presented today and tomorrow in High Season.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
21 October 2022 Friday 21:42
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Cheek by Jowl proposes a popular and current version of 'Life is a dream'

Calderón's great classic Life is a dream is the proposal of the English company Cheek by Jowl that is presented today and tomorrow in High Season. The tandem Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod "turns great classics into current and popular authors", in the words of the festival director, Salvador Sunyer.

On stage, the actors of the National Classical Theater Company, thanks to the long-standing friendship of Lluís Homar, its director, with Donnellan, to whom he proposed, when he was appointed to the position, to carry out this collaboration. "Donnellan is a reference director in the direction of classics and I dare to say that this production will be a before and after", declares Homar.

LaZona, with Miguel Cuerdo at the helm, is the third leg of this co-production, which has just premiered in Seville and will be in Madrid for the season. It is the second classic of Donnellan's golden age. “The first, Fuenteovejuna, we directed thirty years ago. At this rate, we won't be directing any more,” jokes the veteran director.

“The interesting thing about theater is the human aspect –continues the English director–. We are very lonely and, when we go to the theater, we discover everything that people have in common, so that an extraordinary act of empathy takes place”.

"We never understand the works we make, because to try to understand a work of art is to kill it," says Donnellan. I say all this because Calderón is much more ironic than is believed. Life is a dream reveals itself very slowly, but of course Calderón doesn't understand it either."

Donnellan also satirizes Spanish theatrical politics: “I find it very complicated. It has happened to me that they entrust me with a project and after a while that person disappears, leaves the position. Every time there's an election they come in and out like it's a Nick set, it's a dream. As has happened now with the British Prime Minister.

For his part, Ormerod, who is also in charge of the sets and costumes, adds: “From experience I know that I have to create spaces of absolute freedom, with a lot of possibility of change, because I work with a director who is a theatrical terrorist. You could come to the very end and tell me we're going to do it another way. And worst of all, I will surely agree with him, ”he concludes.