The story of Faustus, the doctor who sold his soul for knowledge has often been understood as the bargain of the rationalist. Emerging with Marlowe’s powerful script, Faustus stands for the man who, having embraced science and philosophy, rejects spirituality for learning, his demonic pact a concession to cosmology that is seen as little more than superstition. Perhaps Marlowe was commenting on the seismic shifts of the Reformation, as familiar Roman Catholic ritual was replaced by the unfamiliar individualism of Protestantism: in Goethe’s epic cycle, Faust counts the cost of the Enlightenment but discovers that grace still holds its potency.
Even in a more secular age, a tale with such huge conceptions of good and evil retains its fluidity and depth. Handspring’s Faustus in Africa! confronts colonial exploitation and power, while The Faustus Project delves into Marlowe’s text to create what they describe as “the actor’s worst nightmare”.
Faustus in Africa! revisits similar artistic territory to the company’s previous EIF appearance, Ubu and the Truth Commission, using the structure of a familiar play to attack immediate political anxieties. Their trademark puppetry is placed at the service of a narrative that takes place on a safari and, through a stunning score, additional text from Lesego Rampolokeng, recognises the relationship between colonial exploitation and the current climate crisis.
Puppetry director Basil Jones acknowledges that there were multiple inspirations to adapt the myth for the stage. “I think the idea was the inspiration: it was only once we worked with Goethe’s play that we recognised the beauty of the text. But it is an enormous play, and it would take five hours to perform, so we had to select, and we had to link the parts we selected.” With Rampolokeng’s contemporary and ‘tough’ poetry connecting the acts, the production settled firmly into a modern context.
Handspring’s Adrian Kohler recalls a further inspiration: “A museum that was an unreconstructed celebration of Belgium’s treatment of people in the Congo: it was like going into a museum of Tintin in the Congo. It gave us the impulse to use that as a starting point.”
The idea of Faustus as “a discontented academic who has studied every philosopher and is still unable to find happiness, and finds the devil is the next best option to find meaning” is reimagined as “colonial explorer,” Kohler continues. “We based his puppet’s face on a picture of a sweating, depressed Pierre de Brazza, who explored the Congo.”
By contrast, The Faustus Project takes Marlowe’s script and offers multiple actors the chance to play the cursed doctor. “We preselect the actors, a different person for every night. They get our cut of the script, so they know what to say,” says director Caden Scott. “It is not a cold read. I meet them before the show and direct them through the scenes. And we add games.”
“Like theatre sports: they know what the scene is supposed to be, but we make it more difficult!” adds co-director and performer Courtney Bassett. “It is like increasing challenges as Faustus goes deeper into depravity.”
For Scott, it is a matter of capturing Marlowe’s intensity. “You can do Faustus like the Globe or the Royal Shakespeare Company, but if you put your mindset back 400 years, the play is scandalous. The message is don’t do it, but to get there, they used all this crazy stuff. So we have to up the ante, to make the play feel modern.”
Whether interrogating the horrors of European expansion into Africa or providing performers with a chance to embrace a Faustian bargain live on stage, the myth and its variations clearly retain their theatrical potential, from EIF grandeur to a show that leans into the Fringe’s dynamism.
The Faustus Project, Underbelly, Cowgate, 31 Jul-24 Aug (not 11), 9.05pm
Faustus in Africa!, The Lyceum, 20-23 Aug, 7.30pm