STAGE REVIEW : ‘Dream’ at LATC: It’s a Puzzlement

Life is not a dream at the Los Angeles Theater Center. It’s a nightmare. Its latest “adaptation,” Calderon de la Barca’s admittedly hard-to-adapt classic, “Life Is a Dream,” written in 1635, amounts to a disfigurement. Where is “The Illusion” when we need it?

The mishmash is not content merely to demolish “Life Is a Dream.” According to the program, it includes excerpts from Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s 1920s adaptation of Calderon’s “Dream,” which Hofmannsthal renamed “The Tower.” Beats me if it does. One can barely track the plot of “Life Is a Dream,” let alone recognize the inclusion of other significant material. It is all virtually unrecognizable.

Was it not surrealism enough that a Spaniard wrote a philosophical fantasy about a King of Poland and a Duke of Muscovy, here translated into a semblance of American English? Was it really necessary to make the King a kitschy rap artist who broadcasts his public speeches over radio KING, punctuating his phrases with endless “check it outs”? Did we need an Astolfo and Estrella who impersonate (and not well) ‘50s TV stars with sitcom music to match? Or a Rosaura and Clarin who come flying in like Snoopy in his Sopwith Camel?

If this sounds remotely like fun, it may well be what misled directors Sidney Montz and Bill Bushnell (who took over from Marcus Stern in midstream) into deluding themselves that it would work. There’s nothing wrong with adapting or updating a text--especially one as complex and conventionally dated as this one--provided there is a fundamental loyalty to the original spirit of a piece. Wit and grace help too. But these hardly apply here where common, let alone good, sense is derailed in favor of cheap laughs and even cheaper identification with modern iconography, delivered at a frantic pace. (When in doubt, rush.)

What surfaces on the Tom Bradley stage looks like a parody of a deeply serious work gone mad. Were it not for the character names that remain more or less intact, everything else is transformed into a topicality-driven surrealistic absurdity. There is also the addition of a philosophical gopher--that’s right, gopher--found in neither texts. This creation, aside from being cute, is the only fruitful invention in the whole jumbled affair. He at least (handled by Brad Brock and spoken by Tom Fitzpatrick) makes some sense.

Beyond that, there is nothing but a kind of frenetic bleakness to report. Even the set by Allison Koturbash has the garishness of a bad dream. A tower, a throne room, a well. The first two are self-evident, but the well, clearly symbolic, is where a number of people make a splash. Just why is murky.

The usually fine actors vary wildly in their ability to deliver the goods, even within the course of a single attempt. Julia Mengers is an appealing Rosaura until she has to take part in that senseless television sketch with Ron Campbell and Colette Kilroy as Astolfo and Estrella, respectively.

Kilroy and Campbell are in control most of the rest of the time, even if she is doing Theda Bara and he is playing Boris (as in “Bullwinkle”). The only laughter the sketch itself provokes is the one on the prerecorded laugh track.

But it is Mark Christopher Lawrence’s King Basilio that is the thorniest problem. Conceived with dialogue that sounds plucked from a sanitized conversation with 2 Live Crew, one is hard put to follow it, let alone reconcile it with any direct translation from Calderon or Hofmannsthal.

Maury Efrems offers a bewildered Segismundo, central character in Calderon’s play and the one whose transformation is the crux of its philosophy: that reality is eternity and our lives are nothing more than a passing dream within it. I defy anyone to emerge from this production pondering that idea.

Time Winters (Clarin), Richmond Hoxie (Clotaldo) and Tom Fitzpatrick (as the entire court, when not simply speaking as the gopher) complete the cast as best they can, which is usually pretty good. Timian Alsaker’s costumes and lights are vivid, as is Nathan Wang’s original music.

But the production as a whole is a far cry from anything Hofmannsthal or Calderon had in mind. Which brings up a burning question: Did anyone have anything in mind? If so what and where did it all go wrong? One of the great strengths of the Theatre Center is its willingness to take huge risks. This taste for gambling has worked well and is the lifeblood of creative theater in general. But every once in a while there comes a cropper.

This one’s a beaut.

A stickier issue is the fact that this production is part of LATC’s commendable 6-year-old partnership with the schools, called “Theatre as a Learning Tool.” One shudders to think that this bloated, hyperkinetic “Dream” is being presented to students as a classic.

What is everyone thinking of?

* LATC DIRECTOR RESIGNS: Managing director Robert Lear has submitted his resignation. F8

* “Life Is a Dream,” Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street. Tuesdays-Sundays, 8 p.m.; matinees Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m.; May 5 and 12, 8 p.m. only; May 22, 6:30 p.m. Schedule varies to accommodate weekday student matinees. Call box office for exact dates and times. Ends May 26. $23-$28; (213) 627-5599). Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

‘Life Is a Dream’

Brad Brock: Gopher

Ron Campbell: Astolfo

Maury Efrems: Segismundo

Tom Fitzpatrick: The Court/Voice of Gopher

Richmond Hoxie: Clotaldo

Colette Kilroy: Estrella

Mark Christopher: Lawrence Basilio

Julia Mengers: Rosaura

Time Winters: Clarin

An adaptation of the English translation of the Calderon de la Barca Spanish classic by Edwin Honig, with additional text from “The Tower” by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Producer Diane White. Directors Bill Bushnell, Sidney Montz. Sets Allison Koturbash. Lights and costumes Timian Alsaker. Hair and makeup Elena Maluchin Breckenridge. Composer Nathan Wang. Sound Jon Gottlieb. Stage manager Susan Slagle.