12. Faust - Part One.
Goethe's Faust part one - Royal Lyceum 17/03/06
When I first heard that there was going to be a stage adaptation of this mammoth work I could not help but buy a ticket. The story of Man's temptation by the Devil and the folly that arises out of such bargains permeates throughout our culture to the point of being universal. But although I know the tale, I have never read the play or seen any production of it. Yet in a way I have, that is to say its various themes that have been reproduced in so many different story lines and dramatic works. The Faustian story has remained strong in the popular imagination and has been the inspiration for many artistic works. Apart from Goethe there are many other interpretations of the tale such as by Marlowe and Thomas Mann as well as the music of Schumann, Berlioz and Liszt to name the most obvious. I needed to get back to the source of it all, to see it in the original or at least as pure enough reproduction that I am able. This play was hyped up a little bit in the small press. You can imagine the tag line; "Far too long has Faust been labeled as too difficult, too large to attempt to place on the stage!" Even if this ends up like the Titanic and sinks beneath the waves it would still be an event worth attending for the event alone.
The newspaper reviews have been mixed, such as with the critic Robert Dawson Scott of The Times, and it would seem that the two parts might not make a competent whole. There has been some murmurs that this production only touches generally upon Goethe's Faust and that the first part suffers as it spends too much time making self conscious reference and analogy to our modern circumstance while the second part goes in the opposite direction and presents the heavy philosophical threads in an undigested mass impedes the drama of the play.
I arrived still feeling light headed and the usual Edinburgh crowd was there. The performance avoided being poe faced and august but by playing to the crowd it felt more comic than tragedy. It goes without saying that Mephistopheles, like all Devils, got the best lines which the actor Dugald Bruce-Lockhart took full advantage. But Faust, played by Paul Brennen, was not up staged and his voice, rather than his physicality, won me over. Sadly the women of the ensemble did not do so well. I thought they moved about the stage and their delivery of the dialogue was more stilted and reminded me of the amateur (stagy) acting beloved by amateur productions or school performances.
The first part is said to be the most accessible of the two so it will be interesting to se how the second half fairs. In the first part we are introduced to Faust and we see him taken on a journey with his tempter, Mephistopheles, through various adventures which culminate in Fausts seduction of the goodly Gretchen which causes her downfall. In the end Gretchen is condemned to death after she has lost her family and her child by Faust. She refuses to be rescued by Faust and he flees. But before the end the angels reveal that she has been "saved". Her salvation has meant that some question if this is actually tragic? All I can say was that I remembered when I went to the vet to have my dog put down. Up to that point I believed that I had acted properly; I dealt with the dogs disease rationally and kept a brave face for the family as getting upset would not benefit anyone. But being in that small room, saying goodbye to the dog was just too much. For all my reason and intelligence I realized I was helpless and so I, like Faust, bolted from the place. Whats done is done but knowing that one could do nothing was more chilling than failing to do something. Perhaps that is what was meant at the end; despite any power, intelligence or knowledge we may attain in life we are still small flawed creations in a World that we can never fully know or deal with. From dust we were created and to dust shall we return.
When I first heard that there was going to be a stage adaptation of this mammoth work I could not help but buy a ticket. The story of Man's temptation by the Devil and the folly that arises out of such bargains permeates throughout our culture to the point of being universal. But although I know the tale, I have never read the play or seen any production of it. Yet in a way I have, that is to say its various themes that have been reproduced in so many different story lines and dramatic works. The Faustian story has remained strong in the popular imagination and has been the inspiration for many artistic works. Apart from Goethe there are many other interpretations of the tale such as by Marlowe and Thomas Mann as well as the music of Schumann, Berlioz and Liszt to name the most obvious. I needed to get back to the source of it all, to see it in the original or at least as pure enough reproduction that I am able. This play was hyped up a little bit in the small press. You can imagine the tag line; "Far too long has Faust been labeled as too difficult, too large to attempt to place on the stage!" Even if this ends up like the Titanic and sinks beneath the waves it would still be an event worth attending for the event alone.
The newspaper reviews have been mixed, such as with the critic Robert Dawson Scott of The Times, and it would seem that the two parts might not make a competent whole. There has been some murmurs that this production only touches generally upon Goethe's Faust and that the first part suffers as it spends too much time making self conscious reference and analogy to our modern circumstance while the second part goes in the opposite direction and presents the heavy philosophical threads in an undigested mass impedes the drama of the play.I arrived still feeling light headed and the usual Edinburgh crowd was there. The performance avoided being poe faced and august but by playing to the crowd it felt more comic than tragedy. It goes without saying that Mephistopheles, like all Devils, got the best lines which the actor Dugald Bruce-Lockhart took full advantage. But Faust, played by Paul Brennen, was not up staged and his voice, rather than his physicality, won me over. Sadly the women of the ensemble did not do so well. I thought they moved about the stage and their delivery of the dialogue was more stilted and reminded me of the amateur (stagy) acting beloved by amateur productions or school performances.
The first part is said to be the most accessible of the two so it will be interesting to se how the second half fairs. In the first part we are introduced to Faust and we see him taken on a journey with his tempter, Mephistopheles, through various adventures which culminate in Fausts seduction of the goodly Gretchen which causes her downfall. In the end Gretchen is condemned to death after she has lost her family and her child by Faust. She refuses to be rescued by Faust and he flees. But before the end the angels reveal that she has been "saved". Her salvation has meant that some question if this is actually tragic? All I can say was that I remembered when I went to the vet to have my dog put down. Up to that point I believed that I had acted properly; I dealt with the dogs disease rationally and kept a brave face for the family as getting upset would not benefit anyone. But being in that small room, saying goodbye to the dog was just too much. For all my reason and intelligence I realized I was helpless and so I, like Faust, bolted from the place. Whats done is done but knowing that one could do nothing was more chilling than failing to do something. Perhaps that is what was meant at the end; despite any power, intelligence or knowledge we may attain in life we are still small flawed creations in a World that we can never fully know or deal with. From dust we were created and to dust shall we return.
posted by Laclos at 6:16 pm
