arrow_downarrow_leftarrow_rightarrow_upbookmarkArtboard 6bubbleicon_arrow_lefticon_birdicon_calicon_facebookicon_mailicon_searchicon_twittericon_websiteicon-emailicon-facebookicon-ldicon-twitterArtboard 6review_countsigthumbs_downthumbs_uptop_allArtboard 6top_yearw-negw-nonew-nutw-pos
Erin Shields' adaptation of John Milton's

Paradise Lost

July 31st - October 21stStudio TheatreTicket Info
Generally Positive Reviews based on 5 Critics
  • bottom 24% of shows in the 2018 season
5 Reviews
Comments

Traditional arts journalism is in decline. Now more than ever, this independent website and our podcast fill a growing void. We've had over 1.5 million page views, and are grateful that you are here. We rely on readers — and a handful of advertisers who share our values — to make our work possible. When we raised funds for our podcast, The "Performers Podcast," the average donation from people like you was $96. Now we hope you’ll join us in augmenting our coverage of arts in the region by making a one-time donation today.

Founder Stratford Festival Reviews
Donate Now
This is a listing for the 2018 season. For the current 2023 shows click here.

Buzz - Jeff Nelson

Never been more fun to watch

“Creating a script that runs just under two and half hours from twelve books of poetry that run between 600 and 1000 lines each is no small challenge.

One major change Shields and director Jackie Maxwell made is representing the Devil as a woman. Milton’s original text has only two women as characters and only Eve has a major part. But, thanks to Lucy Peacock’s sizzling performance, this manager of the Underworld has never been more fun to watch at work.”

Read Full Review09/03/2018

Stage Door - Christopher Hoile

Contrary to everything Milton’s...

“I don’t mind a satire of a work that an author understands. I can’t abide a satire of a work an author does not or can’t be bothered to understand. Shields is free to portray God as a tyrant with his angels automatically chanting “Wise are his ways” as a salute whenever his name is mentioned. But that portrayal goes contrary to everything Milton’s poem depicts…

Luckily, the play is blessed with fine performances from the entire cast, with Peacock’s wry, unsavoury talkshow host-like Satan a particular standout.”

Read Full Review08/31/2018

The Globe and Mail - J. Kelly Nestruck

Large, talented ensemble

“Paradise Lost, Erin Shields’ sprawling and startling new play premiering at Stratford, adapts and wrestles with the epic by John Milton – and immediately places this magnetic devil on stage to set the audience’s moral compass spinning…

Paradise Lost is not just philosophical – it’s fun, too, and a large, talented ensemble helps make it so. (Sarah Dodd, in particular, has a heck of a time as Sin, trashy with a visible thong.) But it’s Peacock that gives us – as she also does as Volumnia in Robert Lepage’s Coriolanus at the Avon, and in so many other Stratford Festival shows over the seasons – that moment of edge-skirting acting that stays with you at the end, and makes you feel electricity in your brain even as you remember it after.”

Read Full Review08/21/2018

The Toronto Star - Not credited

The most effective production at the...

“Many plays, in theory, try to implicate the audience in their plots, usually asking us to identify with their moral ambiguity. But Paradise Lost is the most effective production at the festival, not only through Shield’s script but Maxwell’s direction. The house lights are up, Peacock is magnetizing and Shields gives her words that are at once timeless and etched into this very time and place. Social media, Trump, climate change, these are our trigger words to listen up. She might be Satan, but at least she gets it, right? Let’s hear her out.”

Read Full Review08/20/2018

The Stratford Beacon Hearald - Galen Simmons

Good, evil, and what lies in between

“…playwright Erin Shields managed to infuse enough levity and humour into her work to keep the audience laughing as we considered the very nature of what is good, what is evil, and what lies in between.

Of course, much of that humour comes from Satan herself, as she coyly shares instances of dramatic irony with the audience. Seemingly, she is the only character who knows of the fourth wall’s existence, playfully breaking it down and building it up again and again.”

Read Full Review08/19/2018

No Matches for Reviews

Share This Post:

Share This Tweet This Email This