Marlowes Doctor Faustus is notoriously hard to stage. This tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil in return for twenty four years of having everything he wishes for must have been terrifying in a world where everyone believed firmly in a life after death. Nowadays, in an increasingly secular, some would say Godless world, its difficult to get across just whats at stake here.
Bawds TC have cut the text to a mere hour. This is no bad thing. The original, though full of purple passages, is also full of dead wood and almost unplayable low comedy scenes. This spare adaptation focuses on the battle for Faustus soul between the forces of good and evil.
Chief among the latter is Mephistopheles, Lucifers right hand man. In this production the lines are shared between James Dowson and Tricia Peroni. The device works well, as does the redistribution of other lines, including giving some of Faustus own to other characters, particularly the angels of good and evil. Towards the end the stage seems to teem with argument and counter argument as director Nick Wharburton ramps up the excitement.
The production falls down for me in that Martin Woodruff, though not a bad actor, is not young enough. There seems little sense of the golden boy of the Renaissance age who throws it all away for nothing. He does rise to the occasion in the plays draining finale. As Faustus is staring eternal agony in the face he begs that his torment may last only a hundred thousand years. Faustus tragedy is that midst all his despair, even at the last, according to Catholic theology, he only has to utter the word sorry and God will forgive him.
Silly sausage.