Doctor Faustus

by Christopher Marlowe

seen at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 6 April 2016

Maria Aberg directs Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan, who choose the parts of Mephistopheles and Doctor Faustus by lot at the beginning of each performance, and a company of actors in the minor parts (many of them also taking part in the concurrent production of Don Quixote). The choice depends on which match struck at the same time by the two actors is extinguished first: that actor plays Mephistopheles. (I understand that this choice is overridden on days when there is both a matinee and an evening performance, to ensure that each actor plays each part on that day.)

The costumes are modern - the two leads in white suits to begin with, though when the play itself starts, Mephistopheles provocatively wears no shirt - and the acting space of the Swan is a black floor on which Faust soon paints a pentagram in white, and a wall of plastic bubble wrap which is ripped to shreds as the magical incantations of the first scene begin to take effect. The Seven Deadly Sins are presented by Lucifer as a grotesque fashion parade; the characters at the papal court wear elaborate and exaggerated clerical garb as if they too are fantastical elements of Faustus's imagination.

The text used is from the shorter version of the play, in which the major scenes are: the incantation and summoning of Mephistopheles; the Seven Deadly Sins (presented to convince Faustus of Lucifer's power over him); the Papal Court and Faustus's revenge on those who try to kill him; the summoning of Helen of Troy; and the final damnation of Faust. The eerie pairing of the two main characters, who start by looking fairly similar, although Mephistopheles maintains a cool remoteness while Faust deteriorates physically as well as spiritually, encourages a reading whereby we are witnessing the psychic collapse of a single person from within. The repeated insistence by Mephistopheles that Faustus should seal his contracts with blood leads to a degree of self-maiming which becomes quite uncomfortable to witness; at the final moment he stabs Mephistopheles instead, but the fatal wound erupts in his own body (of course), and Faustus dies in the arms of Mephistopheles.

This was interesting and provocative. A couple who were staying at the same B&B as me said the next day that they absolutely loathed the production, not least because they could not follow what Faustus was saying. It is true that he spoke very fast, and without emphasising the strong consonants, so that his speeches were like rivers of words cascading from his mind in panic; I had to pay close attention to catch everything. (I think, but am not absolutely certain, that it was Oliver Ryan playing Faustus in the performance I saw.)  Also they disliked the text used, though I am not sufficiently aware of the editorial details; I thought it was mainly the 'short text' of the play, but even this may have been cut in places.

I certainly liked the production more than my fellow guests did. But, even in the abbreviated form (the play lasted less than two hours, played without an interval), I was sharply reminded of how puerile Faustus is. He sells his soul to the devil in order to access unlimited power, having become jaded and dissatisfied with all book-learning, and how does he use this power, so far as we are shown? Merely to make himself invisible in the pope's dining chamber so that he can throw dishes of food around without being discovered. Later, when some strongmen of the pope's waylay and kill him, he returns quickly to life and inflicts gratuitously painful punishments on them - but this is all just petty nonsense. It is not particularly clear that we are meant to reflect on the discrepancy between Faustus's vaulting ambition and this schoolboyish fooling around, as Faustus never seems to reflect on his behaviour at all, apart from regretting the bargains themselves when it is too late to do so.

The Helen of Troy scene is the one instance when something more significant is achieved. Faustus requires her presence merely because he can, merely to show he has a paramour to match any historical figure, but her manifestation inspires the famous lines about launching the thousand ships. This is a cliche now, but the passage as a whole is marvellous, so much more impressive than any of the earlier fooling around. Interestingly, here, the entire speech was given by Mephistopheles rather than Faustus, reinforcing the idea that we are witnessing the fateful splitting of a single personality, and it was spoken beautifully on this occasion.

There is, in the end, no redemption; Helen fades from view once the great speech is over; there is not even a hint of the Gretchen story made famous in Goethe's version of the myth two hundred years later. The whole atmosphere is far more grim as the deluded Faustus hurtles towards self-destruction.