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Life's A Dream (review)

Joanne Akalaitis has long created theatrical worlds rife with the tension of irreconcilable contradiction—the clash of past and present, the ultimate undecidability of gender, the ironies of image and word—an aesthetic made to order for the ubiquitous dualities of Life’s a Dream. Walking into the Court Theatre’s fairly intimate space, the audience was immediately struck by a set at once simple and baroque, elegant and garish—nothing less than Escher done in bright red. Scenic designer Gordana Silvar created a large, raked platform of red tile, from which a center ramp extended virtually to the feet of the front-row spectators, and which was flanked on either side by a broad set of stairs. Behind and to the right of this austere yet arresting space was a large, hanging mural that recreated a period drawing of two dragons posed ars serpentia. Upstage left were three doors in succession, each bearing a similar period drawing: the palm of a hand, a map of the universe, an eye encircled by a Möbius strip.