Eddie Staver III in Life's a Dream Say what you will about the Prenzie Players' latest presentation, but you can't say that the classical-theatre troupe, with its production of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life's a Dream, is merely resting on its laurels.

Reader issue #682 The latest undertaking by the Quad Cities' classical-drama troupe the Prenzie Players is an adaptation of Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life's a Dream, and at one point during a recent interview, group co-founder and Dream director J.C. Luxton tells me, "This show is just running, running, running. There aren't a lot of breaks for anybody."

Including, as it turns out, the audience.

Eddie Staver III in Fully CommittedFive minutes into our interview, local actor Eddie Staver III says something that I can't quite believe: "Comedy scares me."

He does, however, quickly amend the statement: "Comedy scares the hell out of me."

"And dream we will, for we are in so odd a world that just to live is to dream." - Segismundo, Life Is a Dream

 

In his aptly titled Life Is a Dream, playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca suggests that even if life is no more real that our sleeping stories, the Golden Rule still applies. Actions and relationships still have pertinence, and the status of an individual is defined by the opinions of those around him. Calderon's poetic 1636 play continues this weekend as part of the University of Iowa's 2003 Mainstage season.