Michael Gow’s Faustus is unlike any version that has come before. It does involve elements of many, along with slide shows, shaky cam, burlesque, Paradise Lost and the music of Liszt. The result is a brilliantly dense, surreal kind of morality tale.
Doctor Faustus is an old scholar who, disappointed by all that physics, law and theology has to offer, turns to magic. He calls up the demon Mephistophilis, who offers him a deal on behalf of Lucifer: twenty four years of youth, power and all the knowledge in the world, in return for nothing but his soul.
Ben Winspear plays a childish, passionate, petulant Faustus opposite John Bell’s mild and mocking Mephistophilis. Where Bell is exceedingly comfortable on stage, Winspear comes across initially as cartoonish and parodic. Of course, he is a parody: when he sits facing the stage within the stage, watching devils perform sin, he’s us. As he realises the error of his ways, he becomes increasingly small and human. Every member of the cast is enormously talented and each get a chance to prove it.
The set design is simple and stunning. Curtains we can see being operated swing back and forth, splitting the stage, caging the characters, serving as projection screens for subtitles and snatches of black and white movies. Puppets, mannequins and masks come into play, brutally artificial pieces designed by Jonathon Oxlade. Combined with a soundscape equal parts symphonies and disturbing noises, the tone of the play is utterly hellish, exactly as it should be.
It is a terribly clever play, alienating, emotionally effective, entertaining and unsettling in turns.
Faustus runs until the 24th of July at the Sydney Opera House Playhouse.
