“Life is a Dream” was unlike any other play I’ve previously read, largely due to the tetrameter and rhyming but I found it very similar to Shakespeare in how it read.  That being said, Acts I and II were not awful to read and and had a couple of comedic moments.  One question I had after the reading, however, was how is/ is Rosaura important to the plot?  Most of the focus seemed to be on Segismund, and his relation with Basil and Clotaldo, but I did not get why Rosaura was initially dressed up as a man, nor really what purpose she served, except maybe to parallel Segismund in some way??  The whole portrait scene between her, Stella, and Astolf confused me as well, because it seemed to kind-of be just thrown on the side.  One of the central questions that the play poses: “what is life” is answered by Segismund as “a frenzied, blurry haze…not anything it seems…life’s a dream” because he was convinced by Clotaldo that his short lived reality as prince was nothing but a dream (2182-2186).  While Segismund so far is a laughable character, this goes to show that if you listen to somebody enough, what they say may actually be true.  Segismund’s rule as prince was fueled by revenge for his past of being locked away due to a prophecy and since his short rule was nothing short of tyrannical, this poses another question of would Segismund actually been a good ruler (in the future)?  After he is re-awoken in the prison, Clotaldo tells him that he really “ought to honor one who reared and taught [him], even in the realm of dream.  For doing good is man’s supreme imperative…” (2143-2146)  In the final monologue before the beginning of Act III, Segismund seems to be comtemplating Clotaldo’s words, and perhaps in Act III we will see him change and be a better man, not a beast to which he is commonly referred.  He does seem a little bit nihilistic, though, remarking that everything is a dream and nothing is real.