This weekend was the first in a long time that I tuned in to virtual theatre (and indeed Soulpepper is extending its offerings for one more month, so I don't have to rush quite so much to listen to Six Characters in Search of an Author before it vanishes on me). George Brown was wrapping up its season, and on Sat. I watched Paradise Lost (adapted by Erin Shields) and on Sunday I saw them do Caryl Churchill's Love and Information. I'd say of the two, Love and Information translates a lot better to Zoom, but this isn't a review of that show. I'm not sure if they trimmed Paradise Lost or not. Shields's adaptation ran 2 hours 45 minutes at Stratford a few years back (when theatre was still allowed), and it was just under two hours here. Even factoring in a much shorter intermission and less time devoted to character blocking and the battle scenes, this suggests some text had been cut. What's interesting is that I had seen an even shorter one-hour version of Paradise Lost at the fringe in 2018 that retained far more of Milton's actual language (Shields really only recycles a small handful of lines). In my view the plot is fairly thin and the underlying message is so problematic (even if spun in a more feminist manner as Shields attempts here) that the only thing really going for it is Milton's glorious language, which is absent in this adaptation. So in that sense, I don't consider this a particularly successful experiment.
How does Shields adapt the story (as I already mentioned she largely jettisoned the language)? Satan is portrayed as female, and the angels (mostly doubling as devils/demons) should be a mix of males and females. (To be honest, I think it might have been more radical to have both God and Satan portrayed as women.) Adam and Eve have a more balanced relationship, prior to the Fall at least. Of course, there is only so much that God's judgement can be modified, and Eve is quite explicit about how unfair she considers her punishment (having to be completely obedient to Adam hereafter and then the terrible pains of childbirth). Shields also seems to dive a bit more into Jesus's plans on redeeming humans, which is a minor theme in Paradise Lost. (Of course the life and times of Jesus is the focus of Paradise Regained.) One other addition (or at least one I can't recall in the original) is that while the angels can't form a shield around the Garden to prevent Satan from getting in (since there still needs to be the exercise of free will), they put on a show (here done as a shadow puppet show) to warn Adam and Eve about a "Deceiver" who will come into the Garden of Eden and try to lead them astray. This sort of had aspects of Hamlet's play within a play, but I'd say the payoff was considerably lower. I guess you could say that they were warned, but maybe a more specific warning would have been more useful, i.e. no matter what you hear about the Tree of Knowledge, it will be a lie.
Where I really balk at religion in general is the insistence upon unquestioning obedience. I don't think reflexive defiance is any better, but in both cases it is the unthinking part that offends. Maybe there never would have been a rationale I would have found acceptable on why God didn't want them to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, as it seems to basically be a loyalty test, and moreover one that he knew upfront they would fail. I definitely am more on the same page as Satan in wondering if there really can be "free will" in a universe run by an all-knowing (omniscient) and all-powerful (omnipotent) being. The best one can hope for is that the deity is indifferent to things at the human scale, but if he (or she) takes an interest then it seems that everything that happens must just be a piece of God's plan and humans (and angels and devils) are in fact merely puppets. For my money, I much prefer the Greek or Norse mythologies which feature gods with limits on their powers, as it is simply easier to square human suffering with fractious, squabbling gods rather than the all-powerful one Milton (and Shields) puts up on a pedestal. (Indeed, reading the Book of Job and taking it seriously was the moment when I lost any vestigial interest I still had in Christianity.) I could go on for a while in this vein, but it must be obvious that the overall narrative of Paradise Lost does nothing for me and Shields's very minor reworking makes no substantial improvement, certainly nothing that would change my mind on the overall injustice of the Adam and Eve story.
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