Much contemporary entertainment owes practically everything to Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus.  The play may not have exerted a massive influence on love stories or romantic comedies, but when it comes to entertainment that trades on special effects or horror, Faustus remains the unholy mother of all.  It is equally responsible for the river of psychological case studies that followed, populated by all those existential anti-heroes: Hamlet, Milton’s Satan, Byron’s Childe Harold, Melville’s Ahab, and on into the world of comic books and our fascination with the villain: The Joker, The Punisher all the way to Darth Vader and beyond the final frontier.

At its core, Faustus is a one man, three act play: everything is interior and what we see is what is projected from the mind of Faustus.  In Tad Chitwood, Barrett has found an actor capable of carrying that dramatic weight through all three acts (the fall, fallen life, and damnation of Faustus).

 In this play, everything depends on having a Faustus who can message the build up to the play’s most famous set piece: the conjuration of Helen.  Anyone coming back to this play after a long absence expects to find Helen of Troy to figure in much earlier in this picaresque.  Faustus must fall for the babe straight away, surely!  But no, Faustus somehow has done everything with Mephastophilis except conjure up the face that launched a thousand ships?  (The French Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan would call Helen "object a"--that which we desire.  Well in this play object a appears initially in images of satiation: remember--Mephastophilis grants the wish of lechery immediately.)  My point is this: Faustus, at the play's end, cannot logically sustain this pleasure in sex and yet he can and he must if Marlowe’s conceit is to be carried off. Chitwood’s performance of Faustus has him finding joy in kissing Helen and it works because it captures precisely this paradox. In just the same way, I know Faustus should not enjoy  fleecing a country horse trader out of a bag of gold.  He is Faustus, he can fleece bigger fry, but yet the low comedy works believably as Faustus and his devilish playmate Mephastophilis ham up the skit, turning it into a kind of cracked Kentucky rendition of Paper Moon.

Indeed, the support Faustus gets in this production from Hallie Kirk as Mephastophilis  (henceforth Devil M) is exceptional and makes for fantastic drama.  The sexual undercurrent interjected into the relationship between the demon and our male hero is simply fascinating to watch.  The costuming, lighting, and overall dramatic presentation all enhance the interactions between the pair. 

I thought Kirk’s evolving presentation of Devil M both daring and utterly persuasive.  Kirk’s willingness to explore what Kaja Silverman calls the acousmatic voice is a gift to the audience.  Kirk forces you to register the fact that the voice is independent of the body.  Such voice shifts are a blunt emotive device--but here the effect is powerful, a true gateway to horror.  Kirk’s commitment to formalized movement (the sustained poses with arms out in a kind of eastern waiter's pose, but without the serving trays) taps into the inherent charm such a style possesses. Indeed, the clash of acting styles between Devil M and Faustus heightens the dramatic struggle that is at the heart of the play.

And the same praise can be said of all the actors,-- everyone was committed to seeing Barrett’s vision and make it work as living art.

For me, any opportunity to see Faustus should be seized.  But J Barrett Cooper’s staging of this play is more than that—it is a memory to be prized.

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Dr Faustus finishes its run OCT 28-31 at 7:30 PM at the Kentucky Center.  Also with Tony Prince, Nathan Kaplan, Elizabeth Cox, Eric Frantz, Cory Long, Tom Schulz, Kelly Moore, and Marisa Barnes.  Tickets are general seating and available at the door for eleven dollars.  

 On Oct 28th, Matthew Biberman will give a brief talk prior to the show at 6:45.