Theatre 2016: Review Twenty-Six

Doctor Faustus, The Barbican, London. September 2016.

I'm easily swayed into going to the theatre and this time it was my friend the Upstart Wren who was keen on seeing this.  I have a love/hate relationship with the RSC but Doctor Faustus is a play I like a lot and so I was quite happy to accompany her.  It all started well, trains were on time, we found the Barbican with no problems and our seats were excellent...

The opening was promising too - the roles of Faustus and Mephistopheles are shared between two actors and at each performance the decision as to who plays which role is decided by striking matches, however as the characters were dressed identically at this point I can't remember whether the owner of the match that went out first played Faustus or Mephistopheles - already not a good sign for the play!

I got more hopeful as the start did show Faustus surrounded by books, but my reading of him is that he feels he has learnt all he can from the books he has but wants more which is why he makes his pact but in this version he starts by throwing books away in disgust and I had the feeling that he was bored by them not that he was a renowned scholar.

It just went downhill from here on. The text had been drastically cut but the time filled with lots of modern dance and whitewashing of the stage. I never felt that the good and bad angels were actually fighting for Faustus, they merely seemed bored and one of them could barely speak the line.
A moment of levity came with the appearance of the deadly sins although even this became smug and self referential as covetousness appeared to look like Antony Sher's Richard III - a role he played for the RSC...

image from Findingshakespeare.com

My biggest discomfort from the play came ultimately from the feel of the piece. I found it to be incredibly anti-Semitic in tone.  At times, to stress the evil events, a black and white film is played at the back of the stage - this reminded me utterly of the propaganda films created by Goebbels during the late 1930s and early 1940s, also the words Faustus speaks to conjure throughout the play were certainly not the Latin of the original and had, to my ear, the harshness and cadences of Hebrew. 

I'm not the only one who has been made uncomfortable with this - other have commented that the students/devils have the look of Jewish scholars.

I'm pleased I saw this version of the play for it reminds me how good the Globe's version from 2011 was. I think that cutting out all of the humour from the play (like Shakespeare Marlowe's plays are a good balance of comedy/tragedy) was a mistake, the play felt unbalanced. I've also read the play since seeing it and I don't think I like the additions either. 

Ultimately I never believed in either of the leads - possibly because Mephistopheles looked just like Richard O'Brien when he played RiffRaff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Theatrical Interlude 29

Edward II, Oliver Stage, National Theatre, London. October 2013.

So much for not having so much time to blog - well I suppose I am reading less for fun currently and don't have so many book reviews to share.

This past weekend Rebecca and I had another of our London binges - this time two plays and two museums in the space of 36 hours (37 if you count the end of BST!). We were joined by another friend but she has more sense than us and just came for lunch and the first play - Marlowe's Edward II...

This was a mix of styles in performance as some of the actors were in period costume and others very much in modern dress. The same followed through with the set and staging and after a few moments to understand that this was the style I found that it didn't bother me too much. The swapping of genders for participants also took a while to settle in but the actors were so good this did also cease to be an issue.

The play itself is also a little bit of a mixture as it has a deceptively simple story line - bad king makes bad decisions and his lords rise up against him. However as plotting to overthrow a monarch is something best done in private how to show this, and all of the bad decisions, on stage...

This production used handheld cameras to follow the actors into less visible areas and at times there were two stories being told - the actors at the front of the stage and then the projected video feed on the walls to the side.

I think it worked.

I came away being bowled over by the quality of the actors and the power of the story but slightly less convinced on the staging.  The Oliver theatre has a wonderful revolving section and in my mind I'd imagined that being used to switch between parts of the story.

A lot of Edward's downfall comes about because he advances his (male) lovers politically and the existing nobles,naturally, don't particularly like this usurpation of their power. For me this play wasn't about their homophobia - when the king kisses his favourites (which he did a lot) the lords aren't shocked by this, or repulsed. It is the behaviour of the lovers as they flaunt their wealth, power and influence that enrages the establishment.

Gaveston (the King's lover and one cause of his downfall) was seated in the audience at the start and when he leapt from his seat and started talking to the stage I did wonder if there was an unhinged audience member. While this use of the whole theatre works at The Globe it felt a little awkward in this performance and made me long to see this either done in a more 'straight' fashion or actually at The Globe with full groundling participation.


This all sounds more negative than I actually felt on seeing the play as I enjoyed it a great deal.  It also makes an interesting comparison with this week's set uni text which is Richard II - another poor king who loses his life.

picture of the whole cast and crew of the play tweeted by the National Theatre and taken just after the curtain fell on the matinee that we saw.

Theatrical Interlude 16

Doctor Faustus, Globe Theatre, September 2011.

After having such a good time on two previous occasions I had a look on the website to see if there was anything playing on days that Mr Bookworm and I were both free.

It was with great delight that I found a performance of Doctor Faustus that we could both attend. Mr Bookworm read it earlier in the year and proclaimed it 'more readable' than Shakespeare and I've always been fascinated by the idea of actually being able to sell your soul to the devil.

The day didn't start well, there was torrential rain falling in Norwich as we left, but by the time we reached Bankside the weather had more or less cleared. It being a Sunday we decided to treat ourselves and had brunch at The Swan at the Globe. Our table was possibly the best in the house being tucked into a corner window overlooking the Thames and St Paul's Cathedral. The food and drink were lovely too.

The weather appeared to change as we sauntered across to the theatre and it started to rain, our seats were right up at the top of the theatre but the view was wonderful and it was lovely to people watch as the theatre filled up. The rain stopped just as the actors appeared on stage and by the end the weather was gloriously sunny.

As ever it took me a little while to adjust to watching a play in full daylight but I was quickly immersed in the story and totally drawn in to the story of a man who literally will do anything to learn the secrets of the world and then once he has the power squanders it.

The acting and the staging were wonderful, I've only just started watching Doctor Who* and to be honest Arthur Darvill's character hasn't really made and impression on me - however he was great in Doctor Faustus. I loved the ensemble cast all taking more than one role (excepting the two leads) and the costumes made you think that there were 3 times as many actors than there actually were. I thought it was a great touch having the angel and the demon played by sword wielding females. And as for the dragons...

All in all another great play in a lovely theatre. I'm not going to get to see anything else there this season but already I can't wait for next year's to be announced.



*This is where I confess that despite what I said here I have become a convert to Doctor Who. Damn, 30+ years of resisting down the drain.