Announcing Life is a Dream/La Vida es Sueño

We are excited to announce a brand-new production of Calderón de la Barca’s La Vida es Sueño – Life is a Dream – which will premiere in Seville this October and go on to perform at the Teatro Clásico in Madrid from December.

A prince chained in a mountain. A young woman disguised as a man, in search of vengeance. Revolution, love, murder – but in Life is a Dream, is the real truly real, or is it all just a dream?

Cheek by Jowl take on Calderón’s astonishing play from the Spanish Golden Age in its first Spanish-language production, directed by Declan Donnellan, designed by Nick Ormerod, and performed by an ensemble of Spanish actors.

It comes after many years of bringing Cheek by Jowl’s work to Spain and forming connections and collaborations with Spanish performers and practitioners down through the years. Life is a Dream marks the first play from the Golden Age since Donnellan and Ormerod presented their 1989 English-language adaptation of Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna at the National Theatre in London.

“Shakespeare, Sophocles, Calderón…Classics last because they are always about now: 400 years ago or today. We work on them because they continue to share life through time. They probe our self-deceptions and our glories, our relationships and our systems and help us to discover what it is to be ourselves.”
– Declan Donnellan

2022 performance dates are available here, and keep an eye out for further announcements…

Co-produced by Cheek by Jowl, Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico (CNTC Madrid) and LAZONA; in collaboration with the Barbican, London and Scène Nationale d’Albi, France.