Paradise Lost
Centaur Theatre
A theatrical adaption
Of John Milton’s Paradise Lost
By Erin Shields
Directed by Jackie Maxwell
January 14 to February 2, 2020
The Centaur Theatre began its 51st season with a bases-loaded home run. Lucy Peacock is outstanding in the role of Satan and the premise becomes the devil doesn’t need to destroy mankind, we will destroy ourselves. Innuendos, right out of today’s headlines, i.e. building pipelines, subtly hint about ways to destroy our planet.
The play which runs 2 hours and 40 minutes with a twenty-minute intermission is never boring. It continues to deliver performances that make it difficult to single out actors. They are all in sync with each other verbally and in choreographed fight scenes. The script dangles comfortably between comedy and drama. Amelia Sargisson as Eve and Qasim Khan as Adam gel as a couple and deliver some poignant dialogue after Eve gets tempted by the snake in the Garden of Eden.
The playwright nods at Shakespeare, too, when a flurry of true-believer angels put on their own show about the civil war in heaven as if they were the mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Alain Goulem as Raphael is extremely entertaining, particularly in the second half when he directs this play within a play.
Marcel Jeannin as God the Father and Gabriel Lemire as God the Son deliver good dialogue about a punishing God vs. a loving God.
Patrick Emmanuel Abellard as Michael, Rebecca Gibian as Uriel Michelle Rambharose as Gabriel, Julie Tamiko Manning as Sin, and Jake Wilkinson as Death, complete an excellently cast production.
