Paradise Lost on 2006-05-21
I've always liked to think of myself as a very culture orientated person.
Yesterday afternoon I saw Paradise Lost at Richmond Theatre. It was long, uncomfortable and confusing but it was beautifully done.
During the first ten minutes, I was out of it. I had lost the plot and I had no idea what was going on. Forty minutes later I began to get really fidgety. Because it was very literate everything that they had said when right over me. The actors were amazing and the costumes were incredible, but the language lost me. For example, instead of a twenty minute long speech, they could have said "look, Eve, just don't eat the fruit...'kay?"
When it was the intermission, I was asking my dad what was happening and he got me up to speed.
In the second half, there was something I didn't read on the leaflet, and much to my surprise there was full nudity. After a while, I just figured that Adam and Eve would have worn a fig leaf or something but no. Also, being quite close to the front made it very full on. So, not only was I just sitting there, I was just sitting there watching naked people... from 3ft away.
After an hour and a quarter of their nakedness, Jesus gave them some clothes and it took them, I kid you not, over five minutes to put a shirt on alone. And we paid to watch that? I'm all for art and theater, but there are some things I am uncomfortable with.
It was excellent though, you have to give them a hand for learning a script like this:
"Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of OREB, or of SINAI, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of CHAOS: Or if SION Hill
Delight thee more, and SILOA'S Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' AONIAN Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime."
And this is where I am going to be later on this evening:
Besides the fact that it hasn't got any sound, the quality is awful and that I took it in London, it still doesn't down the sheer coolness of seeing my second favourite band for the third time this evening.
Rosie xxx