In 1658, John Milton began to work on what was to become one of the most monumental feats of literature to this day. For scholars, it is a cornerstone of English Literature, not least because it was one of the first English epic poems, much like The Odyssey; yet Milton actually began writing Paradise Lost as a play. All the same, it is difficult to imagine that he envisioned such a fate for his masterpiece as the one that Lost Dog has created.
The idea in itself is ridiculous: one of the most complex literary texts reduced to a 75-minute performance by one man, who takes on the parts of every significant character while also acting as an omniscient narrator, whose anecdotes of the everyday interrupt the story at hand. The performance takes a dramatic, complicated epic about religion and free will and turns it into a comedic tale about the complications of creation.
Faced with such an impossible task, the play remains aware of its own inadequacy. In fact, it embraces them. The stage is about as bare as you could wish for, with only a single chair in the centre of a white circle. This circle encompasses Heaven, Hell and everything in between, and stands to show us that our imagination holds far more power than anything reality can conjure for us.
Anyone who has read Paradise Lost will be familiar with Milton’s grand, operatic language. It’s part of what makes the story so compelling and, undoubtedly, presents one of the major obstacles in the translation from page to performance. But what Milton does with words, Artistic Director Ben Duke does with dance, perfectly capturing the essence of the poem in a vastly different medium and showcasing the often-overlooked power of physical theatre. The battle between God’s angels and Satan’s band of rebels is a particular standout: all words are drowned out by music so that all we can do is to watch his frantic movements as he jumps from one side to the other, fighting off imaginary archangels while bathed in a crimson light. It’s a chaos we can’t entirely make sense of, just as it was written by Milton.
But what we’re laughing at is essentially the story of creation. Milton was a devout Protestant, so for his work to become a source of comedy would leave him turning in his grave. For God to be portrayed as a character so unapologetically human would surely be improper, and yet the play does not go so far as to suggest that we should all be laughing at the idea of God watching his creations run amok. During the final scene, Adam and Eve make “their solitary way” through Eden to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. It seems to hint at the hope that lies beyond the gates of Paradise. Not quite irreverent, not quite deferential, the production operates in the grey areas that lie between the lines of Milton’s poem, the areas that critics most love to explore.
Can a human speak for God? Milton thought so, and “Paradise Lost (Lies Unopened Beside Me)” does not shy away from its humanity. By merging God with Adam, Satan with Eve, imagination with reality, Lost Dog’s production has transcended boundaries , and created something entirely unique. Who knows whether it will spiral out of control?