FAUSTUS. To 20 November.
Northampton
FAUSTUS
by Christopher Marlowe and other hands
Royal Theatre To 20 November 2004
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat 13,18 November 2,30pm
Audio-described 9 Nov
BSL Signed 16 Nov
Runs 2hr 40min One interval
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Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 November
Artistic director Rupert Goold declares he has a licence for ambition at the theatre following his Paradise Lost in January 2004. When the critical police come knocking he'd better make sure he has a permit for perversity too. Arrogance and perversity are themes suited to Marlowe's famous devil-pact academic. And there's a good case for shearing away the comic insertions added to pull in the 1590s crowds (though it hardly produces an author's cut').
Goold could doubtless give a fine production of Marlowe's Faustus. Scott Handy is certainly up to the job. His opening speech, in a cramped, book-lined study makes clear the scholar's mental excitement. The light of learning can't keep up with this brilliant mind; no wonder he turns to the occult's dark places.
Handy makes the thought processes precise and clear. It's a pity he's reduced to a virtual walk-on by the meeting with the 7 Deadly Sins, who manifest in a modern art show (surprisingly tame, though Lechery has a nice way with her tongue that gives an upbeat stroke to the normally limp end of her speech).
Turner Prize-land haunts the production, where the other hands' turn out to provide a parallel from the modern art world. This cultural cloister might seem more pretension than ambition, but the parallel makes a couple of intriguing points.
The artist's assumption of creation in reshaping history and experience is a kind of magic art. And, just as the Faust legend was built round an historical figure, Goold and dramaturg Ben Power have used the Chapman brothers (Turner runners-up) as part-fictionalised characters.
They're an apt choice given their decision to paint over works by Goya (which they bought first) an assertive example of art concealing art. The trouble is, they come over as dull beyond endurance in flat performances that suggest radical artists ever ready to talk naively down the microphone of Paul Chahidi's TV arts commentator. It doesn't help that this is such an obviously mocked fellow (hardly Chahidi's fault he doubles as a sinister satanic art dealer).
Maybe it started out as a nice idea, but the feeble dialogue falls flat between Marlowe's verse. A new visual perspective as we look godlike down on the Chapmans' work is more forceful than Faustus' final speech; what started out as vaulting ambition trips over its own feet.
Dr John Faustus: Scott Handy
Jake Chapman: Martin Savage
Dinos Chapman: Richard Katz
Foster: Paul Chahidi
Mephistopheles: Paul Barnhill
Helena/Helen of Troy: Sophie Hunter
Cornelius/Vega/Pope/Old Man: Jason Morell
Deadly Sins/Chorus: Nicola Dale, Jennifer Hart, John Murphy, Katie Johnston, Tom Kirk, Kim Birtwhistle, Amy McKeown, Christian Hawker
Good Angel: Phoebe McLaughlin/Laura Clarke
Bad Angel: Lily Alston/Andrew Davis
Director: Rupert Goold
Designer: Laura Hopkins
Lighting: Rick Fishger
Music/Soundscape: Adam Cork
Movement: Sian Williams
Dramaturg: Ben Power
Assistant director: Mike Hayhurst
2004-11-09 09:11:19