Exploring the Mind with Dream Theatre
Sitting in the auditorium for Dream Theatre, having expectations wasn’t an option. The show proclaims itself as “tangible nonsense”, and no other moniker is as befitting. In this production, eleven dreamers act out a variety of ridiculous and abruptly shifting dream sequences. The show was developed by the performing students through this semester’s laboratory theatre class, giving each dream an edge of personalization and vulnerability to the performers.
Dream Theatre is comprised of several short skit-like sections, with the guiding booklet I picked up on the way in being the only thing that gave a semblance of story structure as each dream flowed into one another without hard breaks or intermissions. Some sections included musical or narrative accompaniment, my favorite songs among them being “Rainbow Connection” and “Love At First Sight”.
One of the non-musical skits, titled “Life Cycle”, tells the story of a dreamer going through life from a hopscotch-playing childhood to an unsettling still deathbed, surrounded by several other dreamers acting as ghosts of her past self. My favorite dream in the entire show was “Van Man”, in which two dreamers crusading on an office chair with a cake pan acting as a steering wheel kidnap another two unenthusiastic dreamers into their “van”.
The ending musical number “I Wish I Was the Moon” closes the show wonderfully, as all eleven dreamers gathered together to sing. The lyrics were heartfelt, one lyric being, quote, “I’m so tired, I’m so tired, I wish I was the moon tonight”.
Theater as an art creates a suspension of disbelief and a sense of wonder that’s entirely unique to it, impossible to replicate through television or film. Dream Theatre uses the very form of theater to its advantage and creates an experience like no other that was well worth the honor of viewing.
