The Great Theater of the World (El Gran Teatro del Mundo) is a c. 1634 play from Spanish writer Pedro Calderón de la Barca (17 January 1600 – 25 May 1681).
The play is an allegorical explanation of man's place in world according to the Catholic Church doctrine.
The play is a depiction of the Catholic Church’s doctrine on how humans are on Earth just for a brief and fast test while the real (and eternal) existence is the one that begins with death as in the afterlife.
[2] Calderón uses again this doctrinal and philosophical concept of human existence in the world in his more famous play, Life Is a Dream.
This concept of human existence is today’s official Catholic doctrine and an argument against God’s nonexistence due to the suffering and evil present in the world.