Paradise Lost is witty, sophisticated and lethal
STRATFORD,
BE PREPARED to be gobsmacked. The Stratford Festival’s production of Hamilton playwright Erin Shields’ latest work is witty, sophisticated and lethal.
You’ll laugh in celebration of the sheer audacity of Shields’ writing. You’ll wince at the hard-hitting truths she exposes. And unless I miss my guess, you’ll be thoroughly captivated by her take on John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost.” Shields’ steady stream of heady, sometimes disturbing images will seduce you, just like Satan in Shields’ play.
When the production finally lets go of you you’ll walk out of the theatre knowing you’ve just seen something triumphant.
You will in fact walk away knowing you’ve just seen the most potently realized play of the entire Stratford season. It’s unquestionably the best thing I’ve seen at this Festival in years.
Buoyed aloft by stunning direction from the redoubtable Jackie Maxwell, cunningly vaulted into rarefied air by breathtaking actress Lucy Peacock, this play ensnares you with its bustling staging, visual seduction and soul-destroying truths. It all serves to align humour with Shields’ terrifying litany of evil spread over the Earth in the name of God and his human acolytes.
When Shields let loose with the full grip of her catalogue of human horrors, little gasps erupted from the audience. No longer laughing at cute little Adam in his masculine nakedness, no longer smiling at his adorable partner Eve, we sense the heat of temptation that warms them and seals their plight.
Suddenly there’s Satan, with those oh so tight thighs, handsomely poured into leather trousers, no longer an exotic standup comedy queen, but finally a she-wolf we’ve just been falsely admiring.
Peacock’s female Satan, she of those tight leather pants and lingering lusty looks, has actually been lying in wait, tempting not only with the forbidden fruit of that exotic tree, but eventually with a whole smorgasbord of enticing little whispers.
Now, who would have thought John Milton’s epic poem about heaven and hell would beguile a modern audience with such delirious visions of the sacred and the profane?
Shields’ genius here is in unlocking the fertile humour in this classic battle between good and evil. When she pounces — and Shields frequently pounces — the fearful images come fast and furious. You find yourself shrinking down in your seat, trying to hide, but you know, you can’t.
A crack cast fills almost every cranny of this powerful play with admirable strength. Juan Chioran’s God the Father is an archetype for good. Sarah Dodd’s evocation of Sin is lethal and luscious and Amelia Sargisson and Qasim Khan make sweetly childlike images of Adam and Eve until their awakening sexual attraction makes you shiver as they hungrily bite that juicy apple.
“Paradise Lost” is the sort of play that will leave you stunned into silence, yearning for the loss of a world that might have been. You’ll leave the theatre however, contemplating images of man’s evil that Shields projects viciously onto your awakened imagination.
Does she leave us with a shred of hope in the wake of ugly terrorism, and children screaming in the dark? If you want to know you’ll have to see her play. But be quick: It’s almost sold out for the rest of its run.
Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 35 years. He once choreographed Erin Shields in a musical or two. gsmith1@cogeco.ca
“You should have seen the show, What God took six days to make, I destroyed in an instant.” ERIN SHIELDS, “PARADISE LOST”