I went backstage to a performance of "King Lear" (although it might have been a different king). Barack Obama was playing the titular king. He came out in renaissance garb, with a mustache and goatee. There were three or four generic dream important people (heads of state?) also backstage, but renaissance Obama walked over to me, much to my surprise. He may have said something to me, but I can't recall it.
Through a dream switch, I was playing the titular king. I've never seen or read "King Lear," although I know it's about an old king and his three daughters. I was anxious because it was opening night and I had no recollection of rehearsals or my lines (which is typical for my dreams). In the play, I was following my twenty-something wife, who had long dark hair and wore a loose, gauzy, flowing white dress, up a series of stone steps. The stage and steps were dark. I was spying on her, in an Othello kind of way. I've only seen an opera of Othello, but I know in a fit of murderous jealousy, he kills his wife. I'm confused about the exact staging, because I think we walked up the theatre aisle, which turned into a wide stairway, which then branched. The branching allowed me to get ahead of her and crouch behind some kind crenelated platform. I watched two men come out of the shadows, stab her, and then flee.
This was my cue to descend the stairway and deliver a speech. Someone off-stage buzzed a buzzer, which was supposed to prompt me. I came down to her side. I wasn't able to recall a line, and may have improvised something. In my mind I wondered what my parents, who were in the audience, might think--and I could imagine the negative reviews of the play in the papers.
The actress playing my wife was telepathic. :What's going on, boo?: she asked.
:I'm blanking out on my lines.: I replied, also telepathically.
She said something along the lines of :You call for help.:
A guard and an advisor appeared on the scene.
There were a few more wildly improvised Shakespearian speeches about Love and Death while my wife artistically bled to death on the steps. At one point I looked at the advisor and said, "Prompt," and he led me through a flowery soliloquy.
The dream transitioned out of a play and into an in-world fantasy.
I was the bitter king grieving from his mountain kingdom over his recently slain wife.
After months of moping around, I was going to have my revenge on Europe.
Anachronistically, I and my peasants loaded up a convoy of semi-trucks, drove down narrow, winding, mountain roads and set up a gigantic carousel gambling house called, "The Deceit of Venice." Yes, it was a casino; yes, it slowly spun around; yes, I was going to get everyone's money.
Snakes were in this part. I don't recall the specifics other than a small white snake crawled over to me and bit me on the mons pubis (in real life I had to urinate? or the dog kicked me?). At another point, I and a group of minions walked by a long sequined tapestry of a peacock, which looked like a bejeweled version of our peacock tile coaster, which turned into a very large, glimmering, scaled snake after we had passed it.
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