Half Trick Theatre company certainly knows how to entertain. Even more uproarious than their Antonio’s Revenge, which is also running at the fringe, the flavour of The Faustus Project is if Mel Brooks staged Marlowe’s Faustus while keeping the text – but mixed in with one of those TV shows designed to be seen after a night at the pub.
A quite brilliant piece of fun
The headline draw of the show is that the actor playing Faustus has not rehearsed with the cast, has no idea what the show will involve, and may or may not know much about the play.
On the evening I saw the show, Faustus was played by James Hay of Necessary Cat. His ability to add characterisation to the blank verse from the script he was reading aloud, while being thrown into the deep end of each scene, was remarkable. Even more impressive was his ability to play along with the WTF! requirements of the occasionally gross things he had to do and what the cast were doing to him. There were also some excellent ad-libs coming from the chaos.and the tricky or embarrassing situations he was placed in.
The cast of Half Trick, playing what seemed to be a zillion parts, of course, kept up their trademark relish for the stage business and ran the gamut from seriousness to comic overacting.
What is notable about this company is that although their method is to rummage through those Elizabethan classics in the attic to find shiny things to play with, they do also keep a clear sense of the original work and intentions. With this version of Dr. Faustus, they use the original verse and make the same appeal to the groundlings as Marlowe would have done with his characteristic irreverent, bawdy, satirical comedy. The key events are also preserved, with almost all the scenes being comic highlights. Although I must mention the conjuring of Mephistophilis (with several additions that were not in the text!), the presentation to the Holy Roman Emperor, the Pope’s dinner, and poor Faustus’ final damnation.
In summary, it's a quite brilliant piece of fun from start to finish.
