Paradise Lost

By Erin Shields and R. Paul Stevens

“The biggest mistake any of us could make would be to underestimate Satan.”

The seventeenth century and present day are seamlessly intertwined as Satan vents to an audience about her frustration at being cast out of Heaven and her thoughts on oppression. When she finds out that God has created delicate new creatures called “humans,” she crafts a plan for revenge and betrayal on the Almighty.

Erin Shields turns Heaven and Hell upside down in this witty, modern, feminist retelling of John Milton’s epic poem about the first battle between good and evil. Shields’s wickedly smart and funny script questions the reasons of the universe, the slow process of evolution and the freedom of knowledge. The debate over right and wrong has never been so satisfying.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781770919358

Erin Shields

Erin Shields is a Canadian playwright best known for radical adaptations of classical texts which bring neglected female characters centre stage. Her additional text for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at The Stratford Festival gives a voice to silenced Hero at the climax of the play. Queen Goneril, which premiered at Soulpepper Theatre in rep with King Lear, centres Lear’s stifled daughters as they contend for power in a world that insists they remain powerless. Erin’s illuminating and hilarious adaptation of Paradise Lost (Stratford Festival), won the Quebec Writers Federation Prize for Playwriting. And her harrowing tragedy about sexual violence, If We Were Birds, won the Governor General’s Award for playwriting. Other plays include: Jane Eyre (Citadel Theatre), Piaf/Dietrich (Mirvish Productions/Segal Centre), Beautiful Man (Factory Theatre), The Lady from the Sea (The Shaw Festival), The Millennial Malcontent and Soliciting Temptation (Tarragon Theatre) and Instant (Geordie Theatre). Erin’s plays are published by Playwrights Canada Press and you can read more about upcoming projects on her website – www.erinshields.ca.

Book preview

9781770919334.jpg

Paradise Lost

Also by Erin Shields

Beautiful Man and Other Short Plays

If We Were Birds

Mistatim / Instant

Soliciting Temptation

Paradise Lost

By Erin Shields

A theatrical adaptation of

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Playwrights Canada Press

Toronto

For Olive and Tallulah

Contents

Freedom And The Fall by Paul Stevens

Repopulating the Canon by Erin Shields

Production History

Characters

On Casting

Setting

Act 1

Scene 1 — I Woke Up

Scene 2 — The Infernal Council

Scene 3 — The Gates of Hell

Act 2

Scene 1 — The Heavenly Council

Scene 2 — Finding Earth

Scene 3 — In the Garden

Act 3

Scene 1 — Preparing the Defence

Scene 2 — Evening in the Garden

Scene 3 — Standing Guard

Scene 4 — The Dream

Act 4

Scene 1 — The Play

Scene 2 — The Ultimate Sacrifice

Scene 3 — Justice

Scene 4 — Let’s Split Up

Scene 5 — Doesn’t Beauty Make You Sick

Act 5

Scene 1 — The Fall

Scene 2 — Sin and Death’s Ascension

Scene 3 — Aftermath

Scene 4 — Consequences

Scene 5 — Satan’s Return

Scene 6 — Exodus

Scene 7 — So What Do You Say?

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Landmarks

Cover

Half Title

Title

Table of Contents

Freedom and the Fall by Paul Stevens

Repopulating the Canon by Erin Shields

Start of Text

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright Page

Page List

iii

iv

v

vii

ix

x

xi

xiii

xiv

1

3

4

5

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

149

154

Freedom And The Fall

by Paul Stevens

Paradise Lost is the single greatest poem in the English language. Its influence is pervasive. It can be felt in everything we know from old novels like Frankenstein or Moby Dick to present-day movies like Blade Runner or the Netflix thriller The Fall. When the poem was first published in

1667

people knew they were in the presence of something extraordinary. It’s the story of all things, wrote one admirer. It reveals such a vast expanse of mind, said another. The poem was written by a blind man, the republican intellectual John Milton, and even his political enemies were ready to concede the poem’s sublimity. Milton himself may be a criminal and obsolete person, said the royalist MP Sir John Hobart, but I never read anything more august, and withal more grateful to my (too much limited) understanding. Why would Hobart have felt so grateful?

In twelve books, each ranging from about six hundred to one thousand lines, Milton explains things we’d only half understood or perhaps glimpsed at through a glass darkly. He raises our consciousness. No work of art enables us to better understand the baffling complexity of evil. As a young man growing up just across the Thames from Shakespeare’s Globe, his father being a trustee of the Blackfriars Theatre, Milton had originally wanted to write a great play, to rewrite the story of the Bible as a tragedy called Adam Unparadized. But in the event he became more ambitious and wrote it in the form of a classical epic, a poem to rival such revered works as Virgil’s Aeneid. Despite its narrative form, the poem is still inherently dramatic, told from radically different, conflicting perspectives, both human and divine. Even the Devil seems to get his due. Satan, who is modelled on characters like Macbeth or Faustus, often thinks of himself as the hero, as a kind of Aeneas in his struggle to defeat God and establish a new community on earth.

What is immediately evident is that Milton is not the servant of his sources but their master. He makes one text speak to another in such a way that his ancient materials speak directly to the concerns of his seventeenth-century English audience, whether they be religious, political, or domestic. This insight, the liberation of the author to create as he or she needs, is central to Erin Shields’s wonderful contemporary adaptation of Milton’s early modern poem. She has learned from him and does what he did.

The subject of Milton’s poem is the problem that haunts all the great religions or systems of thought: how to make sense of our experience of the strange world in which we live, how to transform our experience of fatality into continuity and contingency into meaning. In Christianity the problem takes the form of this question: If the loving God who created us is so good and all powerful, why are our lives filled with conflict, frustration and suffering; most importantly, why do we have to grow old and die?

In answering it, Milton focuses on the issue of human agency or free will. No one who knows anything, he says in one of his most impassioned pamphlets, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God himself, and were by privilege above all the creatures, born to command and not to obey. If this is the case, what went wrong? For Milton, what went wrong is our self-regarding failure to understand the limits of the agency we’d been granted. In overestimating our powers, in trusting absolutely in the freedom of our will or our ability to re-create the world in the image of desire, we actually frustrate that desire, destroy our freedom and produce every evil from climate change to nuclear war. The source of evil is, then, the degree to which we come to idolize our own freedom. In Paradise Lost, Milton aims to show how Adam and Eve, when they prefer their freedom to God’s, quite literally bring death into the world.

In adapting Milton’s poem, Erin Shields rewrites it as a play, if not quite the one Milton had in mind. She has no desire to speak to a seventeenth-century English audience. She wants to speak to us and she has no difficulty

Reviews for Paradise Lost

[nillacat · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another one of those freshman English assigments I cribbed my way through. When I reread it finally as an adult I was astonished. I returned to it because of Mike Carey's Lucifer and Steven Brust's To Reign in Hell, contemporary fantasy on the same themes. And I was surprised and delighted to find depth of character and excitement in a Stuffy Old Classic.

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A grand sprawling epic. I can't possibly say anything good about it that has not already been repeated.

I am fortunate enough to have a brand new edition with lots of annotations and references. Layers upon layers of allegory and myth and history and religion and fable. Deserves infinite rereadings.

[sealford_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this many years ago and thought that it was actually a very fascinating read compared to other literature of its day. I loved the style and language in which it was written, and I think that makes me enjoy it all the more. I am sure that I will read it again very soon.

[schmerguls · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

861 Paradise Lost, by John Milton (read 24 Jul 1966) I read this in full and felt it was good to have read it. From it I extracted one of my favorite sayings: "The mind is its own place, and in itselfCan make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n." This is in Book I, line 253.

[jguidry-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I read this in college and really enjoyed it. But, I think that was because I had a wonderful professor who loved Milton and her energy was infectious. Reading it now, I found it very misogynistic. The poetry was beautiful and I enjoyed the metaphors, but I couldn't take Milton's contempt against women very easily. Oh well, I guess I won't be continuing on with Paradise Regained.

[amydross · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Milton gets extra points for scope and ambition, but I have to admit that he tends toward the preachy (rather than allowing his characters to illustrate their own morals), plus some of his theology struck me as a bit simple-minded. That said, the descriptions of hell remain both beautiful and terrible -- unparalleled in the English language.

[jpsnow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This one definitely makes the short list of must reads. It's great poetry and I enjoyed the effect of its having originally been in English. It's also a great interpretation of the creation story; I observed a number of new ideas as well as some that I myself have posited and refuted. More than anything else I've read, Milton does a superb job of bringing out the essence of the situation, the passions that were felt, and the reason for each event.

[timbears · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was very powerful. I am not the most religious person in the world, but I found the subject matter intensely interesting. The poetic beauty of Milton words captivated me throughout the course of the work. Sadly, I tried "Paradise Regained" but I did not get far into the read before I became disinterested. I guess we are fascinated more by evil than goodness. Sad. I may retry "Paradise Regained" but I fail to see how it can be as moving as "Paradise Lost."

[juliaboechat · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Milton cria um diabo carismático e persuasivo, que clama: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven".

[hvymetalmg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Seeing as I took a class - an entire class, an entire semester dedicated to the reading of this single novel, I was praying I was going to enjoy it. And what heavy metal fan couldn't enjoy the battle of God vs. Satan? The fall of Satan from heaven is a brilliantly written tale and there is so much meaning within every stanza of this epic book. There has to be, I spent 3 months reading it and I think I even got a B in this class.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Formidabel kosmisch epos, met vooral in de eerste helft grote scheppende kracht, maar daarna “verworden” tot een uitgebreide navertelling van Genesis. Nochtans zijn de delen over het scheppingverhaal en de menselijke zondeval (vooral de interactie tussen Adam en Eva is meest poëtisch). Weinig actie, behalve in de strijdtaferelen, de tweede helft is vooral verhalend

[tiffgabler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Don't care if it's blasphemy, Satan is awesome!!! He becomes a character that drives a much needed retelling of Genesis. Milton knew how to use his character and his words to create a book that was one of only two that would usually be found in anyone's house during the 18th and 19th century.

[srboone · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This epic poem is stunning; a magnificent read all the way. I loved it.

[ztutz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Certainly one of the best poems ever written in English!

[jbeckton · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Quite a powerful read, although not the easiest, what with all the classical illusions. But Milton's ability to conjure images with words just blows my mind. e.g. "From those flames, no light, but darkness visible" Has there ever been a better description of the pain of hopelessness?

[engpunk77 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had dreaded taking a class on this but ended up absolutely loving the text. I didn't like my professor and his ideas so much, but found that the text stands on its own as excellent literature, which is something I can't say for Shakespeare.

[amabel300 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although this is not a light read and will require thought and maybe some research (on my part at least) to fully understand milton's meanings, this book is at very least profound. Milton's writing style has yet to be matched by any I've seen.

[jwarbler-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I never would have picked this up on my own, but reading it for class gave me a real appreciation for all the effort Milton put in to composing this piece. It was fun to try to reconcile my own beliefs with what Milton puts forth as the narrative of the Fall(s), and after a while, I think I actually enjoyed reading it. Maybe. Or I just got used to it, at least.

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'd be lying if I said I understood and enjoyed every word of Paradise Lost, but there's no getting around the fact that it's beautiful and terrifying and provoking. It's definitely a book that requires many rereadings.

[markbstephenson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Read many years ago, but still amazes at every re-perusal. Shows that even for a person of Milton's erudition, devotion and great idealism Adam, Eve, and Satan are easier to portray than God. But his ardent and humble invocations of the divine Spirit did not , in my opinion, go completely unanswered!

[calavari · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Okay, I only read part of it, and it was for college. It was incredibly well written and entertaining. My only issue is the complete lack of biblical credibility. It's LOOSELY based on the three little chapters that it covers in the Bible and takes A LOT of artistic license. In doing so, it tells a few outright lies.

I take comfort in that I doubt anyone takes their biblical knowledge from it.

[benuathanasia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The parts I understood were lovely, lol.

[borg6mx5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't think anyone would say that Milton is an easy read, but it is worthwhile. The prose of Paradise Lost is some of the most beautiful in the English language.

[67daniel_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Printed from the original text of a edition from the library of some Mr. Keightley who, apparently, kindly agreed to read each page one by one as they were printed.It´s a great edition, pity it was not accompanied with some illustrations as it was the norm at the time with some publications of Milton´s poetical works.