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Your hosts are joined by real actors to do an unrehearsed read of Calderón's 1636 comedy La Vida Es Sueño, using Stanley Appelbaum's 2002 translation. Think Shakespeare but in Spain. Concluding with a short discussion by the cast. After listening to this, listen to our discussion of the philosophical issues the play raises.
The players recorded all in one room in NYC on 4/7: Talene Monahon (Rosaura), David Epstein (Segismundo), Bill Youmans (Clotaldo), Erica Spyres (Estrella), Chris Martin (Basilio), Mark Linsenmayer (Clarín), Seth Paskin (Astolfo), Dylan Casey (soldier 1 and servant 1), and Wes Alwan (soldier 2 and servant 2). Also featuring giggling!
If you're having trouble following what's going on, check out this synopsis. Purchase the dual-language version we used
To get an idea of what it was like for us recording this thing, here's some live video of the event: a clip from Act Two featuring David, Talene, and Bill.
Watch on YouTube.
Editing and sound effects by Mark Linsenmayer. With music by Jonathan Segel, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #38.
Image by Solomon Grundy.
Please support PEL! Without listener contributions, we absolutely couldn't do crazy stuff like this. If you enjoy it, check out past audioplays: Lysistrata, Antigone, No Exit.
Sponsor: St. John's College Graduate Institute: partiallyexaminedlife.com/sjcgi.
One of my favorite plays!
The drive-by allusion to Seneca deserves some attention. But that Stoicism only gets you so far, a Christian eschatology supersedes it.
A great guide to the social themes embedded in Calderon and his contemporaries can be found in Maravall’s “Culture of the Baroque”
https://books.google.ca/books/about/Culture_of_the_Baroque.html?id=48PmAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y
“[One] had to begin with knowledge of oneself, an affirmation that seemed to correspond to a traditional Socratism (such as was present in medieval Christianity)10 but that now acquired an efficient and tactical character, according to which one did not go in search of an ultimate truth but rather of tactical rules permitting whoever obtained them to adapt to the circumstances of reality in which he or she moved. Because one might be interested in remaking oneself, and because it was impossible to overlook the urgent need to make oneself in order to attain better results in one’s life, knowledge of the human being began with a knowledge of oneself, 11 as the gateway to knowing everyone else —to start “to know, knowing oneself,” said Gracian.12 Knowing oneself to become one’s own master, which led to domination of the surrounding world: Calderon affirmed that this was the greatest manifestation of power (Darlo todo y no dor nada), and that was said in a positive sense. And he added (La gran Cenobia): “A small world am I, and in this I establish / that in being lord of myself, I am of the world.” In Cinna, a line from Corneille articulates this same correlation: “I am master of myself as of the universe.” Access to the second level takes us to the knowledge of other human beings, coming to a practical knowledge about the internal motivations [resortes] of others’ behavior; in whatever situation we might find ourselves we can predict their conduct, adjust accordingly our handling of the data, and secure the results we are pursuing. Knowing oneself and knowing others is dynamically knowing the possibilities of conduct in their tactical unfolding. “Knowing how to live is today the true knowing,” counseled Gracian, which is equal to postulating knowledge not as contemplation of a substantial being (that is, not as the ultimate knowing of the essential form of being or of a thing) but rather as a practical knowing, valid inasmuch as a living subject makes use of it. For Gracian and baroque individuals in general, to live was living on guard among everyone else, which leads us to understand that this baroque and Gracianesque “knowing” boiled down to a maneuvering development adapted to existence.”
Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal rewrote the play as a tragedy.
It could have been entitled “Life [In Central Europe] is a Nightmare.”
There’s no cosmic order for orienting the subject’s relationship to the social and natural orders. Language can’t get you out of your solipsistic prison and affect the community around you.
https://archive.org/details/threeplays00hofm/page/140
The performance, was riveting!! Loved it and will listen to it several times over. What a gem to discover the work and the performance too.