Theatre: ‘Paradise Lost’ a Depressingly Uplifting Chronicle on American Utopianism
CHICAGO – Ethics versus survival. Taking versus giving. Hitting rock bottom but still clinging onto hope. That’s paradise – and what it’s like to lose it – in the 1935 mind of playwright Clifford Odets.
“Paradise Lost” as penned by Odets and directed by Chicago’s Louis Contey is a classically depressing yet uplifting chronicle on American utopianism (or the lack thereof).
“Paradise Lost”
Photo courtesy of the TimeLine Theatre
Replete with a bevy of local character actors – from the furnace repairman to the squirrely mafia friend to the father who plays precisely by the book – one could question whether the cast materializes into a unit or the actors individually stand on their own.
While to me they consummated a team more than they shone as individuals, there’s one underlining concept about the production you can’t question in your own life: We’ve all been there.
“Paradise Lost”
Photo courtesy of the TimeLine Theatre
We’ve all flirted with the American dream – as Odets did so obsessively – the financial hiccups in the process and the grave matters of morality testing us even as far back as whether to masticate fruit in the Garden of Eden.
More than four decades following his death, Odets would want you to lose yourself in “Paradise Lost” and heed these 1963 words: “Dear American friend. That miserable patch of event – that mélange of nothing while you were looking ahead for something to happen – that was it! That was life! You lived it!”
A master’s graduate from DePaul University, Contey comes from experience with this production after living and breathing Odets four times now. And you can tell. He gets more than just the gist of the man and has felt his sometimes suicidal despair.
“Paradise Lost”
Photo courtesy of the TimeLine Theatre
Though times are decidedly different today from those gloomy Great Depression days, we still do and always will feel the financial and metaphoric booms and busts of life.
While the concepts of “Paradise Lost” flung me into memorializing my wealthy furrier grandfather who stashed loot in the walls of his humble abode because he didn’t trust the banks, this overall first-rate cast and crew offer as a shrill wakeup call about how lucky you are to be living with so much fertility today.
“Paradise Lost” runs through Oct. 21 at the TimeLine Theatre. Various times on Wednesdays through Sundays. Tickets cost $15-$30.
By Adam Fendelman
Publisher
HollywoodChicago.com
© 2007 Adam Fendelman, HollywoodChicago.com
“Paradise Lost” as penned by Odets and directed by Chicago’s Louis Contey is a classically depressing yet uplifting chronicle on American utopianism (or the lack thereof).
“Paradise Lost”
Photo courtesy of the TimeLine Theatre
Replete with a bevy of local character actors – from the furnace repairman to the squirrely mafia friend to the father who plays precisely by the book – one could question whether the cast materializes into a unit or the actors individually stand on their own.
While to me they consummated a team more than they shone as individuals, there’s one underlining concept about the production you can’t question in your own life: We’ve all been there.
“Paradise Lost”
Photo courtesy of the TimeLine Theatre
We’ve all flirted with the American dream – as Odets did so obsessively – the financial hiccups in the process and the grave matters of morality testing us even as far back as whether to masticate fruit in the Garden of Eden.
More than four decades following his death, Odets would want you to lose yourself in “Paradise Lost” and heed these 1963 words: “Dear American friend. That miserable patch of event – that mélange of nothing while you were looking ahead for something to happen – that was it! That was life! You lived it!”
A master’s graduate from DePaul University, Contey comes from experience with this production after living and breathing Odets four times now. And you can tell. He gets more than just the gist of the man and has felt his sometimes suicidal despair.
“Paradise Lost”
Photo courtesy of the TimeLine Theatre
Though times are decidedly different today from those gloomy Great Depression days, we still do and always will feel the financial and metaphoric booms and busts of life.
While the concepts of “Paradise Lost” flung me into memorializing my wealthy furrier grandfather who stashed loot in the walls of his humble abode because he didn’t trust the banks, this overall first-rate cast and crew offer as a shrill wakeup call about how lucky you are to be living with so much fertility today.
“Paradise Lost” runs through Oct. 21 at the TimeLine Theatre. Various times on Wednesdays through Sundays. Tickets cost $15-$30.
By Adam Fendelman
Publisher
HollywoodChicago.com
Labels: clifford_odets, louis_contey, paradise_lost, theatre, timeline_theatre
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