The Tragical History of Dr Faustus

Published Friday 11 April 2008 at 11:30 by Paul Vale

Dr Faustus has taken on board everything that conventional education and philosophy can teach and is still unsatisfied.

He now turns to necromancy and concludes by selling his soul to the Devil in exchange for 24 years of magic power. Third Party have a reputation for adapting classic plays to a simple, visceral form and Faustus, with its magical overtones and Marlowe’s rich text is the perfect play for their style.

Here, Faustus is the big fish in the little sea of humanity and it bores him, but once his pact is signed he finds himself the minnow in a devilish ocean.

Third Party’s accessible drama works remarkably well and the style, a mix of rough magic and comic asides, highlight Marlowe’s text beautifully.

Nicholas Collett is a bumbling Dr Faustus, bristling at the uselessness of knowledge and yet an easy dupe to the wiles of Anthony Gleave’s Mephistophilis.

Gleave is a superb demon, a louche lounge lizard who really doesn’t seem to care whether or not his contract is signed, yet his ambivalence is devilishly persuasive.

Lucifer here is played by Shelley Atkinson adding another angle, that of feminine wiles, to the ultimate temptation.

Director John Wright gives the right impetus to this story, eschewing the liturgical drama and creating a world where hell is simply other people, setting the action in a dusty library and marrying the text with the theatrical illusions of light and magic and just the right balance of contemporary comedy.