Anna Burnside reviews a mixed production of a classic.
Doc F, still in his scrubs, bounces off shift and home for a little light exorcism. Two opposing angels, spotting the main chance, attempt to recruit him to their respective teams.
As this is a drama and the baddies always get the best lines, there is never much doubt which way it’s going to go.
And under Jennifer Dick’s direction, Sam Stopford’s Mephistopheles is a much more compelling proposition than the weedy Good Angel, played by Rebecca Robin.
Stopford, a Bard in the Botanics regular, has the measure of what is required to personify evil within the claustrophobic Kibble Palace. He gets right up in the good doctor’s personal space. His false smile would put an air hostess to shame.
Adam Donaldson is a solid Faustus, powerless in the face of Mephistopholes’s persuasion. Robin is less convincing and is not helped by a weedy wardrobe of greying whites. Stopford, dapper in slightly New Romantic finery, bests her in every way.
Neither angel looks very comfortable in some very studenty slow movement sequences. The staging raises more questions than it answers - why does Faustus live among boxes of theatrical costumes and a Pollock’s toy theatre?
It’s hard to make an Elizabethan tragedy, with a central trope that’s so well known that it has entered the culture, fresh and surprising. Stagey slow bowing is not the solution.
Doctor Faustus performs at Bard in the Botanics until July 12, 2025. For further details, go to the company’s website.
Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
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