Life's a Dream (La Vida es Sueño)

"A snappy, playable though poetic prose translation by Michael Kidd (Carleton College) of Calderón's famous La vida es sueño. That is arguably the best of the 500 plays that survive from this dramatist's alleged 2000 efforts. Moreover, the translation comes with excellent critical introduction, supporting materials, and a glossary. Life's a Dream . . . is the best choice for any university or other theater group that wants to stage this play. The fact that modern English prose cannot capture the florid fol-de-rol of early seventeenth-century Spanish is actually an advantage. The love story and the political implications emerge unscathed." —Chronique, Biliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance
"Kidd advances the work of two often-exclusive camps of comediantes: scholarship and performance. ...[C]oming to this text from a background of experience in both the study and performance of Golden Age drama, this reviewer is inclined to join in the applause. For any working theater director, Kidd's introduction alone is a dream come true. As La Vida es Sueno is one of the foundational texts of the period, this important new translation marks its identity as a founding contribution to that burgeoning community." —Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
"This is a faithful, accurate, and eminently actable poetic prose translation of Calderón's masterpiece, which ingeniously resolves its many intricate linguistic and semantic puzzles." —José María Ruano de la Haza, University of Ottawa