Doctor Faustus
The Court of Mephistopheles is in session, on trial Doctor John Faustus, a man born to base parents but who grew up ambitious and calculating, a theologist who thought to understand the Earth and the Heavens but whose learning is principally from the books he has consumed, his opponent an equally challenging intellect but one whose cunning has been gained from many devious lifetimes, who once bathed in the light of God along with their master Lucifer before they were cast down.
Bound together in a pact of fresh drawn blood, Augusta Monet, in their drag king persona of Coyote Ugly, is Mephistopheles, impeccably dressed and moving like a cat across the stage, pulling witnesses from the audience to serve as examples of sinners, and James Llewellyn Evans is John Faustus, pious in unadulterated black sweated through with fear and defiantly quoting Latin in hopes it can save his soul in director Max Ackerman’s compact adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.
Performed in the Caves of Edinburgh’s Cowgate, the set and props are minimal yet the setting is perfect, the vaulted stone ceiling of the labyrinthine venue representing both the lofty reach of church and the catacombs of the damned dead, begging and bargaining and clawing their way out of the pit, yet there are a couple of surprises in the staging with clever lighting and effective use of sound bringing life to the subterranean limbo.
A duel of wits between the two protagonists, one looking to the celestial sphere and the other rising from the depths of Hell, with smooth jazz somewhere between Lynchian cool and seductive sleaze before the heavenly strings of Holst’s Planets finally bring air to the underground space, it is the two performers who carry the show with the urgency of righteous supplicants marching towards their final judgement, flaming dialogue flawlessly delivered at a pace which demands the devotion of lost souls who stand witness.
Doctor Faustus continues at Just the Tonic at the Caves until Sunday 25th August
