Bridge Markland performs his own version of Goethes Faust in a maverick combination of blank verse and pop song. A cardboard box with a window cut out of it provides the stage, platform, puppet theatre and backdrop to his antics.Markland, made up in stark white, clothed in black jump suit, sometimes takes on the characters in the play himself, and sometimes has them appear as glove puppets. He skilfully switches from character to character, and his puppetry skills are effective and credible. Somewhat disturbingly, he mouths the words of text which are interspersed with song lyrics. The lip-synch approach avoids backing tracks and is brilliantly timed, but Marklands mouthing fails to hit the mark in terms of the energy of real speech and this comes over to spectators. The antiquated linguistic style of the original text sits at odds with the interspersed music, but it grew on me.
