In October 2008, Scapegoat Carnivale will be presenting an adaptation of the 17th century Spanish Life is a Dream, by Pedro Calderon de la Barca. This surprisingly post-modern comedy about the conflict between fate and free will is both hilarious and profound.
The play follows Prince Sigismundo who has been imprisoned since birth in a mountain cavern following a prediction that he would grow up to be a tyrant. But now the King is getting old and with no other heir, releases the Prince giving him one day of royalty to disprove the prediction. Sigismundo, having had no idea of his lineage, becomes enraged and his returned to his prison and convinced that his day of royalty was nothing but a dream. Crossed lovers, rebels and loyal servants languishing in doubt populate the landscape that surrounds the young Prince and his distraught father, the King.
Scapegoat Carnivale is an emerging company dedicated to producing exciting new works that expand the limits of theatre and take the medium in unexpected new directions. The company's past productions include Last Call, written by Holly O'Brien and directed by Alison Darcy (winner of a MECCA award for best actor), and The Works, written by Joseph Shragge and directed by Alison Darcy (first runner up for the Centaur Theatre's Best Production award) at the 2007 Montreal Fringe Festival. Upcoming productions include Mud by Maria Irene Fornes to be directed by Emma Tibaldo in January 2009, followed by an original translation/adaptation of Euripides' Medea.