Let me get one thing out up front: If Gorey Stories was your only experience with ShadowApe Theatre Company, know that Life Is a Dream is nothing like GS. Though this is ShadowApe’s fourth show, they got critics’ and audiences’ rapt attention when they performed Gorey Stories last year at the Indiana Repertory Theatre and the year prior at Butler University. The collective’s goal is “to create a unique theatrical experience in light, sound, movement, and form.” GS achieved that, and it was entertaining. Life Is a Dream, unfortunately, focuses so much on the process that the entertaining part gets left behind.

The basic plot is that a prince is imprisoned in a tower at birth because it was foretold that he would be a tyrant. Many years later, the king lets him out for one day to see what kind of ruler he may be. The experiment is a disaster and the prince is taken back to the tower and made to believe that his one day of freedom was merely a dream.

As far as SA’s mission to create unique “light, sound, movement and form,” this show has it in spades. Direction and stage blocking are dance-like, and side lighting is used for unusual effect. A movement loop is used (something ShadowApe really enjoys) at the beginning of the show. All this is fascinating for about the first half hour. But then one wants that entertainment element.

Spanish playwright Pedro Calederon de la Barca’s work is translated into an almost Shakespearean English, which makes the dialogue sometimes hard to follow. Plus, the original script was hacked in half to take a roughly three-hour show down to an hour and a half; a shorter time to sit, but the plot’s logic suffers from it. Add in the emphasis put on the appearance of the show, and empathy with the characters is lost and the plot loses its momentum. The shortened version begins to drag after the visual stimulation becomes repetitive.

Different, that’s for sure. And a challenge. If you are up for it, Life Is a Dream continues through June 1 at Butler University’s Lilly Theatre, Thursdays-Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 4 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20; high school and college students are $10. Call 257-7125 for reservations.