For this project, I decided to perform Eve's speech in Book 9 after she fails to resist Satan's temptations and eats the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I felt that this scene represents the key turning point from perfection to sinfulness, and I wanted to represent that through my acting. Eve is described by Satan as having "wanton ringlets" and having "coy submission, modest pride, and sweet reluctant amorous delay," as if she was made "For softness...and sweet attractive grace" (Paradise Lost, Book 4). I wanted Eve after the fall to be a stark distinction from this. With her knew knowledge, Eve retains some of her outward sweet demeanor (which I tried to represent with my hair and makeup), but her personality has changed. She is now considering keeping this "power" to herself, rather than sharing it with Adam. I think this represents something much stronger in Eve, and I tried to demonstrate her rebellion in my tone and body language.
One of the hardest parts of this project was definitely the language. Unlike Shakespeare, Milton writes in a manner that is rather difficult to read out loud. The meter and the sentence structure is hard to get the hang of, so I am not sure whether Eve's speech retained the correct emphasis that Milton would have wanted. However, I think that this project helped me to better understand Eve's character shift in this scene, which is crucial since it's a key turning point in the epic as a whole.
Link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVfN40tCdps&feature=youtu.be