He writes an epic - the genre, as he says, “of highest hope and hardest attempting”-or, rather, he rewrites the epic, undermining its deepest logic and claiming the form as his own. Milton insists he will accomplish “Things / Unattempted yet in prose or rhyme” (though typically he makes this claim of radical originality by quoting an earlier poet). In 1667, as the poem was still being printed in London, it was said that Sir John Denham, a member of Parliament and himself a fine poet, walked into the House of Commons waving a sheet from Paradise Lost, “still wet from the press.” This, he excitedly proclaimed, was “part of the noblest poem that was ever wrote in any language or in any age.”Ĭertainly it is the most ambitious. And I am hardly the only one to think this about John Milton’s epic. Paradise Lost is a great poem-to my mind the greatest written in English, or possibly in any other language. And the theater, with its physical immediacy and inherent capacity for metamorphosis, offers the perfect instrument to engage with what the critic Frank Kermode calls “the sensuous logic of the poem” that moves between “delight and woe … the fall into darkness and disorder, the return to light and order.” Two meals were included, with spectators dining alongside actors, who had prepared the food, creating a communal and sensual beginning to the journey of this adaptation of Milton’s great poem. In 2013, Barakiva and a group of actors presented a day-long, concert reading of his adaptation of the poem at a church in Brooklyn. Of good, how just? of evil, if what is evilīe real, why not known, since easier shunned? To happier life, knowledge of good and evil Of death denounced, whatever thing death be,ĭeterred not from achieving what might lead Rather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain When Satan offers the forbidden fruit to Eve (both destroyer and giver of life), we encounter the essential mystery of the poem - the nature of good and evil - and ask, along with Satan:įor such a petty trespass? and not praise Of pleasure, but all pleasure to destroy, What hither brought us, hate, not love nor hope Satan, with his power to change shape, becomes not only the Serpent, the “subtlest of all creatures,” but also a Cherub and a Toad, and embodies the most powerful oppositions: “Evil, be thou my good.” Momentarily “abstracted from his own evil” by Eve’s innocence and beauty, he reminds himself: The contrasting movements in the play continue, with striking juxtapositions: the birth of Eve followed by Sin’s ghastly account of giving birth to Death (Satan’s son) Satan awaking in hell, then Adam in Eden the Fall of man and the triumph of Sin and Death, followed by the ultimate promise of redemption - the hope of eternal life through the sacrifice of the Son of God for man’s Original Sin. The War in Heaven follows, the Rebel Angels are banished to Hell and Lucifer becomes Satan God then creates the Earth and all living creatures, including Adam, the first human.īarakiva chose to structure the events of the poem chronologically, creating a dramatic progression that intensifies the profound thematic antitheses of the poem. Part I of Adaptor/Director Michael Barakiva’s adaptation of Paradise Lost opens with God’s Anointment of his Son, an act that so consumes Lucifer, “most beautiful among the angels,” with envy that he gives birth to Sin out of the left side of his head, (recalling Athena’s birth and a dark pre-figuring of the creation of Eve). –There will be one 10-minute intermission for each part–ĭramaturgical Consultants | Kathleen Dimmick, David Scott Kastan, K. Mammon, Rebel Forger Angel | Howard Overshown Moloch, Rebel General Angel | Robert Cuccioliīelial, Rebel Messenger Angel | Stephen Bel Davies Satan, the embodiment of Evil, the great seducerīeelzebub, Satan’s confidante | Gregory Linington Lucifer - most beautiful angel, first among equals | Jason Butler Harner Zephon, one of the cherubim swiftest | Howard Overshown Ithuriel, one of the cherubim swiftest | Stephen Bel Davies Gabriel, Archangel Guardian | Carol Halstead Raphael, Archangel Messenger | Cherie Corinne Rice The Son, The Embodiment of All Good | Daniel José Molina The Father - Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent | Saidah Arrika Ekulona
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