Kit Marlowe; the New King of the Psychological Thriller
Review of the RSC's Dr Faustus
Director Maria Aberg has, for me, transformed the legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil into a surreal, Steam Punk cabaret redolent of Gerald Scarfe's illustrations. The accompanying music also supports the re-figuring of the play as a rock opera. When interviewed, Aberg said that when she started working with the composer Orlando Gough they had discussed Tom Waits as the inspiration for the musical style wanting to create a "grotty, sexy quality" as well as "Duckie-style cabaret" as she felt like "it needed to be something fun, dangerous and seductive without being slick" (https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/feb/12/maria-aberg-rsc-stratford-doctor-faustus-sandy-grierson-oliver-ryan-christopher-marlowe).
The danger is apparent as soon as the lights dim with the lead actors Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan each lighting a match at the start to determine who plays which character that night. The tension mounts as the flame crawls flickering to their fingertips. The fraught mood is sustained throughout the play even through the punk cabaret of the personified Seven Deadly Sins in their Dali-esque costumes. This breaks into a palpable sense of unease throughout the audience when the child spirit of Helen of Troy child emerges after Faustus has summoned her to him through Mephistopheles to be his paramour.
The Wittenberg scholars in their uniformal suits and matching bowler hats stalk menacingly through the performance punctuating the scenes with a reminder of Faustus' deadly deal and the lead actors, Grierson and Ryan, are excellent. The night I attended, the match had selected Grierson as the ambitious Dr Faustus and Ryan as the cunning, wheezing Mephistopheles, whose voice was surprisingly like Ren of Ren and Stimpy fame! The set was simple but effective and the intimacy of the play was enhanced by its appearance on The Swan Theatre's thrust stage.
Whilst the play is more about Dr Faustus as a man and his motivations than philosophical ponderings on divinity, the after life and God and the Devil, Aberg's production is a very personal and intimate examination of man's failings. She has teased open the already present human elements of the play so rather than a questioning of divinity being the last message of the play, it is instead a questioning of man's desire to be known, remembered and to be a success at all costs that remains with you far beyond the final curtain call.
