How can God create a perfect world when he himself is fraught with the same flaws, vices and uncertainties as his postlapsarian creations? ‘Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me)’ dismantles the spiritual plane and reframes it through the banalities of domestic life in Ben Duke’s searing reconceptualisation of Milton’s epic.
Returning to Battersea Arts Centre ten years after its premiere, with Olivier-nominated Sharif Afifi taking over from Duke, its creator, this one man show defies its singular form.
Simultaneously embodying God, Lucifer, Adam, Eve, a frustrated father and a dance choreographer, Afifi renders the absence of a larger cast imperceptible. Despite the bare stage, he convincingly conjures up Heaven, Hell, Eden and Earth, demonstrating a remarkable ability to evoke layered realities with minimal props.
What initially seems like it will be 75 minutes of overblown farce begins with Afifi descending a rope to Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, the instantly recognisable yet now somewhat clichéd refrain from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Amidst a few other awkward moments, Afifi cleverly ensnares the audience with humour, using it to get them onside for the heretical re-imaginings of Milton that follows.
Afifi as God creates Heaven through a sweaty and visceral dance, marked by shaky, uncertain movements and a crippled stature as he struggles under the weight of responsibility. His faltering gestures express a recognisable human doubt in his creativity, in a noticeable contrast to the ease and nonchalance often awarded to God in typical portrayals of the Creation story. This self-doubt resurfaces in a meta-theatrical moment when Afifi, now assuming the role of the choreographer, grapples with designing a dance so perfect that it represents Heaven.
Acknowledging its own limitations as a piece written by a white man about a singular male figure representing all of humanity, the piece attempts to be subversive within the confines of its tools. By reimagining a scene in Heaven through the lens of a modern club – perhaps the famed Heaven – it depicts God flirting with Lucifer, subtly presenting their relationship through a queer paradigm. Later, Lucifer and God argue about having children, framed through modern tensions present in progressive relationships around career sacrifice, which culminates in God falling pregnant, suggesting that God is in fact, a woman.
With a frenzied scene depicting Lucifer fall, and a full-blown war in Heaven, Afifi orchestrates the most dramatic battles through the smallest of movements – an impressive feat in a one man show. Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, Milton sardonically postulates, a sentiment that feels more astute than ever in these turbulent times.
Staring at the ruins of this celestial failure, Nick Cave’s velvety line ‘I don’t believe in an interventionist God’ fills the room, eliciting giggles from the audience as Afifi begins to assemble Adam, drawing parallels to Frankenstein and his monster. Stripping out of his suit into a tight beige spandex with a Velcro vine leaf, Afifi becomes a rather comical embodiment of Adam, prancing around the stage, giddy in his newfound freedom.
Fast-forwarding to Adam and Eve, now living together in a flat after meeting at dance school, the piece repeatedly draws the divine back to the domestic. Restless with comfortable life, Eve wanders into her garden, where a comically feeble sock-puppet snake tempts her with the tree of knowledge. Adam, not deceived, though fondly overcome with female charm follows suit and together they fall. Played entirely by Afifi, this deftly executed scene is charged with tension as he shifts elastically between characters. God watches his human creations succumb to temptation and ultimately confronted by his own fallibility.
Leading us through what begins as a light-hearted, humorous tale, Afifi gradually confronts us with flawed masculinity and the inadequacies of the human condition. In a striking closing monologue, he stands beneath a relentless tirade of water, drenched to the skin, as he condenses the entire history of human sin into a spinning carousel of prelapsarian fallibility—Cain and Abel, plagues, pestilence, endless noise and corruption.
Afifi is a true wonder – entirely compelling – while Duke’s script, though occasionally contrived, masterfully distils Milton’s epic into a piece that is bold, resonant and unexpectedly sublime.
Featured Image: Lost Dog in Paradise Lost starring Sharif Afifi, photo by Zoe Manders
Review by Florence Marling
Read Florence’s latest Review: Chasing the ‘NOW’: Time, Politics and Poetry in Jasmin Vardimon’s Production at Sadler’s Wells East – Abundant Art
About:
Ben Duke performed the show for the first time in 2015 at Battersea Arts Centre and over the next few years, performed it all over the UK to the delight of audiences and critics, winning a clutch of awards along the way. Fast forward ten years and actor Sharif Afifi has taken over from Ben as the star of this new production.
Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) has a long history of working with Lost Dog. Originally co-commissioned by BAC in 2015, Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me) premiered at the South London venue, with its success leading to a second BAC co-commission, Juliet and Romeo in 2018. Both productions responded well leading to successful international tours. This homecoming performance exemplifies a longstanding partnership and BAC’s commitment to artist development.
Sharif Afifi’s theatre credits include The Band’s Visit (Donmar Warehouse) which earned him the 2023 Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical, My Fair Lady (London Coliseum 2022) and Hadestown (National Theatre 2018).
Tickets: https://bac.org.uk/whats-on/paradise-lost/
