A Dream Play

Written by August Strindberg

Directed by Mark Prascak

In the Adams House JCR this weekend

EVER WONDER if you dream in color? According to the innovative production of Strindberg's A Dream Play directed by Mark Prascak in the Adams JCR, you do. In green.

In this hilarious rendition of Strindberg's drama, Prascak takes us on a surreal two-hour journey through the playwright's inner dreams--into a sort of Emerald City in Hell. Prascak makes use of everything from green fishnets to Pine-Sol Spray to create his narrative of life-on-earth. But remember, this is the fantasyland of dreams. Here, as Strindberg admitted, "anything can happen; everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. Characters can split, double, multiply, dissolve, float apart, condense." This ain't gonna be no night at the opera.

At the center of A Dream Play stands "Indra's Daughter," a sexy spiritual being sent to earth by her father, the God of the Universe, in order to experience the woes and sufferings of mankind. Valerie Steiker, who has the drop-dead looks of a Hindu goddess, plays her with the allure and comic Southern wit of a displaced Scarlett O'Hara.

In the course of the play's flowing dream-like sequences, Indra's Daughter meets three suffering males--an imprisoned Army Officer (Matthew Schuerman), a stuffed-shirt Lawyer (Seth Sanders) whom she later marries, and a flighty Poet (Mark Karnow), all of whom are knowingly trapped within their limited existence as men. She becomes a sexual object, wife and mother--all of the everyday trappings of human femininity--before she is allowed to rise up and rejoin the gods.

Schuerman is terrific as the pathetic officer. He seems to slither across the stage with the energy and angst of one self-posessed by his own lousy fate. Karnow's daffyness also brings life to the misguided Poet, who does not understand the meaning of truth (the way most Poets do).

Around these pivotal figures the rest of the dream players form a cohesive ensemble and also grapple well with their unusual individual roles. Each plays up to six characters--usually of the opposite sex. Roland Davis, for instance, is cast as the Mother, the female Doorkeeper, and the "Voice of Victoria," and practically steals the show with his high-pitched feminine squawking.

Also of special note is the lighting, which effectively highlights the dramatic tension of this Strindbergian nightmare. Prascak takes into account not only the lighting's immediate effects on each scene but the resulting shadow play as well. Without such creative lighting, the dream-like quality of the play could have failed--20-second blackout sequences are no fun when you expect a seamless transition from one scene to the next.

What, then, are we to make of Indra's Daughter's experiences among the suffering humans? She can escape this dreadful life and we, miserable human beings, can't. Fortunately, though, we have such imaginative production as A Dream Play to help us laugh through the muck as we live through this life in Hell.