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written and directed by Paul Van Dyck

Rabbit in a Hat Productions, Toronto Fringe Festival, Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, Toronto

July 7-15, 2018

Michael: “Then wilt thee not be loth

   To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess

   A Paradise within thee, happier far” (Paradise Lost, Book XII)

It might seem like a foolish task to condense John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) into a single hour of theatre, but Paul Van Dyck does so with insight and intelligence.  Those who have studied the poem will be delighted at how well Van Dyck has captured its essence.  Those unfamiliar with the poem will find that its subject, mankind’s fall from the Garden of Eden, is far more dramatic than they might have imagined.

Van Dyck begins the action with Book II after Satan and his followers have been cast out of Heaven after their failed revolt against God.  Satan holds a council to consider whether or not to attempt to regain Heaven, but it is decided that since God has created a new world inhabited by a new being he loves called Man, it would be better to ruin that creation and potentially win the new creature over to their side.  Satan discusses this with his offspring Death and Sin, who guard the gates of Hell, because if his plan succeeds Satan will bring them into God’s new world.  Van Dyck next skips to Book IV where Adam and Eve speak of their happiness but also of the one prohibition God has given them – not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Van Dyck omits all the information that the angel Michael passes on to Adam about the War in Heaven and the creation of the world and moves directly to the temptations scenes in Book IX when Satan, disguised as a serpent, tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and when Eve tempts Adam to do likewise.  Van Duck uses the lamentations of Adam and Even over their fallen state in Book X and of Satan’s report to the angels in Hell of his success and concludes with the comforting revelations that Michael gives the pair as they make their way from their former home.

To tell the story properly it is absolutely essential that Van Dyck understand the basis that underlies Milton’s portrayal of the events.  Milton subscribes to the concept called felix culpa or the “fortunate fall”.  Mankind could have lived happily but ignorantly in paradise, but, though his fall brings him mortality and suffering, it also brings him independence and the possibility of salvation.  Van Dyck excises huge descriptive swaths of Milton’s epic, but he does not excise two of Milton’s main points, both of which are contained in Michael’s comforting of the exiled pair.  The first is that, though they be barred from a physical paradise, yet they now each carry a “paradise within”, i.e., the possibility of faith, which is even better.  Second, though Eve may have been tempted by the wish to have knowledge, she will be the source of man’s ultimate salvation, or as Michael tells her, “Chiefly what may concern her faith to know, The great deliverance by her seed to come”. 

Van Dyck’s set consists only of three white floor to ceiling drapes – one large flanked by two narrow ones – at the back of the stage and a black table at the front.  When he plays the newly fallen Satan or later the Archangel Michael, Van Dyck is shirtless and wraps the two narrow drapes about his arms so that they look like wings.  Satan soon gives up these wings for an all-black top when in Hell.  Van Dyck creates the great effect of a dictator addressing his followers by having Satan use a microphone for his speeches in Hell.  Through voice-changing technology Van Dyck also eerily plays both Death conceived of as a monster and Sin imagined as woman.

Van Dyck abandons the mic for the scenes on Earth.  In a brilliant theatrical translation of the concept of felix culpa, he uses puppets to represent Adam, Eve and Satan.  The suggestion is that though all three think they are acting independently, they are, in fact, enacting the master plan of God.  In Lyne Paquette’s clever design, Adam and Eve looks as if they have been made of earth as per Genesis 2:7.  Van Dyck clearly distinguishes between Adam, who sounds rather like a country bumpkin, and Eve, who sounds like an innocent nymph.  Van Dyck, wrapping one of the narrow drapes around his arm and holding a mask, also plays Satan as the Snake in a harsh voice.  As Michael, Van Dyck is himself with his “wings” and uses an earnest but compassionate voice quite different from Satan’s or either of the humans.

Since the dialogue in the play comes almost entirely from the lines Milton wrote as dialogue in his poem, what emerges is how dramatically Milton has conceived of the encounters of Adam and Eve and Eve and the Snake.  Satan’s reasoning of why Eve should eat the apple and Eve’s of why she should believe Satan are so logical that it keeps you on the edge of your seat.  Van Dyck speaks Milton’s verse with admirable clarity and brings out its relationship to Shakespeare.  Van Dyck well communicates Adam’s pain at Eve’s misdeed and his sadness of following her path because he does not want to be alone.  Van Dyck also wonderfully plays the moment when Satan, extolling his success, suddenly realizes to his horror that God has made his serpentine disguise permanent.

Jeremy Eliosoff’s projections never overwhelm the production and serve for the most part simply to indicate the changes of place.  They do, however, have a major role to play when Michael shows Adam the grim future that lies before mankind with a montage of 20th-century images of war, disaster and disease.

I was very sorry not to have seen Van Dyck’s Paradise Lost when it played in Toronto in 2015.  I’m so glad to have had a second chance.  Now that it has returned, anyone interested in Milton or indeed in ingenious, highly theatrical storytelling should be sure not to miss it.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive

Photo: (from top) Paul Van Dyck, ©Andrea Hausman; Paul Van Dyck, Adam and Eve, ©Tristan Brand.

For tickets, visit https://fringetoronto.com.