[Milton-L] Recitations of PL

[Nancy Charlton]

I attended a PL marathon at the end of March, 2003 given at St  Andrews Episcopal Church in Seattle. The sponsorship was mainly through Seattle Pacific College (or is it University now?), butwas open to the public. It was well announced here on Milton-L; otherwise I would never have heard about it. I signed up to read, and was assigned the role of the Narrator in Book X. Problem was, the email I received had a typo and said Book XI, so I had prepared the wrong thing and had little time that afternoon to go through big X to scope out  the scansion. Besides, the light was getting pretty dim by the time of "Love was not in their looks."  (

(Angelica Duran, I have CDs of the whole thing and would be glad to lend them to you but I'll want them back.)

The church has a choir loft that fronts with a semi-circular "stage" that made it ideal for the principals to move about. The narrator used the lectern on stage left, and the Father and Son
 sat in the choir at the back. They actually were the church's rector and one of his sons: the other son, a professional actor, was Satan. He had memorized the big speeches in I, II, IV, and IX, and as a man in black was most effective.

This marathon changed my life. I got very involved in reading aloud and in coaching readers. I organized and directed a semi-acted King Lear utilizing the "KL in a Box" game that came out several years ago, and a marathon reading at my church of the Christian Science textbook. Last spring I was planning an evening's reading of Paradise Regain'd but had to call it off because it was set for the Friday of Father's Day weekend.  I'm now First Reader of the church and will be doing a series of Wednesday readings in January built around the various KJV translations of  the word  peirasmon: testing, proving, trial, temptation. The last of the series will utilize the Gospels' accounts of the Temptation in the Wilderness and the trials by
 Pilate and Caiaphas. This will be a good time to reschedule the PR reading. I hope to put it on a free teleconference so that people at a distance will be able to listen in and even take part--though of course they won't be able to eat of the potluck spread I'll offer, as close as possible duplicating the "table richly spread in regal mode"!  More details will be forthcoming as plans firm up.

A little ahead of the Thanksgiving USA but just past Canada and the Sukkot season, but I want to give the sincerest thanks to all of you for your ideas and insights and wit on Milton-L. I've been following it about ten years now, and have truly enjoyed it and learned much from it.

Nancy Charlton
Oregon USA


Nancy Charlton

http://groups.google.com/group/paradiselostdaily



. . . Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic strain.  (Il Penseroso)




      
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