'Life is a Dream' - Calderon Classic at Teatro Calderon
El Aedo Teatro stages a fresh reinterpretation of Calderon de la Barca's Golden Age classic about freedom and destiny, performed at Motril's historic Teatro Calderon. A great-value night of live Spanish theatre with tickets from just 6 to 9 euros.
El Aedo Teatro have done something clever with this one. Instead of staging Calderon's 17th-century classic head-on, they frame it inside a Madrid where the theatres have been shut by royal decree and actors are being hunted down. The evening opens with the bans being read out, then slips into the play proper, so the old questions about freedom and fate suddenly have a sharp edge. Jesus Torres leads it, and the whole thing turns on whether what we live is real or just a dream we'll wake from.
It runs in Spanish, so you'll want a feel for the story going in, but the staging carries plenty even if your Spanish is patchy. At 6 to 9 euros a seat in Motril's own Teatro Calderon, it's a cheap night of proper theatre.