Psst,
Mephistopheles, are you still around, making deals on behalf of the
Devil? Promise to give me back the two hours I spent enduring the
Classic Stage Company’s
misguided production of Christopher Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus,” and
maybe we can come to an agreement. Eternal damnation doesn’t seem all
that bothersome if my memories of this show, starring
Chris Noth as the titular soul seller and
Zach Grenier as Mephistopheles, can be permanently erased.
The
production, directed by the veteran Andrei Belgrader, employs a heavily
adapted text by David Bridel and Mr. Belgrader. Language has been
modernized: “thou” becoming “you” and “hath” becoming “has,” etc.
Characters have been tweaked or eliminated, speeches curtailed. Some
innovations are helpful, such as having Wagner (Walker Jones), Doctor
Faustus’s loyal assistant, pipe up with translations of the Latin that
Marlowe sprinkled through the text.
Others, not so much. This updated colloquial comedy is not an
improvement on the original. (And if thou cannot improve on
centuries-old comedy, thou art in trouble.) But, in general, the
emendations and cuts are not particularly detrimental to the drama,
since there isn’t much in the first place. “Doctor Faustus” is not a
text of particular sanctity; it’s rarely performed, and rather than a
“tragical history,” as it was called, the play is more a moral (or
rather amoral) pageant depicting the title character romping through the
world, causing mischief after making that famous pact with the Devil.
Mr.
Noth deserves some credit for undertaking this challenging and not
entirely rewarding classical role. Then again, maybe some therapy might
be in order, too? Well known for his television work — scouring the New
York streets for villains on “Law & Order,” toying with the heart of
poor Carrie Bradshaw on “
Sex and the City”
and later playing the tough governor of Illinois on “The Good Wife” —
he has made sporadic appearances on the New York stage, most recently in
Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man.” He’s a fine actor with natural magnetism
and a smooth, dark voice.
But
the ornate and often arcane language of Marlowe (even without the
“thous”) does not come naturally to him, and while Mr. Noth does his
best to animate Doctor Faustus’s strange odyssey, he fails to imbue the
character with either any exultation in his dark powers, or the
subterranean ambivalence of a man whose conscience eventually begins to
gnaw at him as the final reckoning approaches.
Mr.
Grenier (who also appears on “The Good Wife”) fares better as a rather
gloomy Mephistopheles, who first shuffles onstage looking like a slab of
concrete accessorized with the agonized faces of souls in torment, and
then shows up again clad in the humble garb of a monk. Mr. Grenier’s
black-velvet voice wraps itself around the language with finesse, and
his great, doleful eyes suggest that Mephistopheles is, as he admits,
“in hell” even on earth, having once been an angel basking in the
presence of God before he slipped up and got in cahoots with Lucifer.
Now
he glides down, or rather up, whenever someone praises the Devil and
damns the Lord, as Doctor Faustus, sated with learning that doesn’t
satisfy, does in the opening scene. After signing a blood pact with
manly fortitude and staunch enthusiasm, Faustus is granted 24 years of
life with Mephistopheles at hand to do his bidding. Then his soul will
be damned to hell, of course.
By
today’s standards, unfortunately, the wicked fun and games Faustus and
friends get up to don’t appear particularly naughty or even enjoyable.
Sure, they tease the pope and a cardinal by making their food and drink
disappear. (Ha-ha.) At the behest of an emperor, Faustus conjures the
spirit of Alexander the Great. And, in one of the play’s most famous
sequences, Faustus raises the spirit of Helen of Troy. Here played by
the comely Marina Lazzaretto, she slinks out of her stuffy formal gown
to enfold Faustus in a naked embrace.
But
mostly, these diversions seem rather tame: It’s not really all that
much fun to chat with the seven deadly sins, for instance. (Most of us
have at least a nodding acquaintance with a few of them.) Mr. Belgrader
and Mr. Bridel have tried to enliven the proceedings by inviting some in
the audience to join in the revels — Mephistopheles teasingly searches
the seats for the embodiment of the sin of pride — but these devices are
not terribly inventive, either.
Watching
over these shenanigans are Wagner, played with sly humor by Mr. Jones,
and two dumb-and-dumber rustics: Robin, played as an uber-doofus by
Lucas Caleb Rooney, and the still dimmer bulb Dick (roughly the
equivalent of Rafe in the original text), whom Ken Cheeseman portrays as
a yokel who garbles his English oddly. Still, as I mentioned earlier,
the updated shtick Mr. Bridel and Mr. Belgrader have fashioned for these
fine comic actors, while certainly easier to comprehend in terms of
language, doesn’t exactly render anyone helpless with laughter.
The
production’s central problem remains Mr. Noth’s inability to invest his
Doctor Faustus with palpable inner life. He’s not terribly convincing
either in his moments of unbridled pleasure and pride in doing dark
deeds, or as a tormented man grappling with the vestiges of his
conscience. In the end, Mr. Noth’s Faustus comes across as a man who
doesn’t actually have a soul to sell. Turns out this time the Devil got a
raw deal.
Source: NEW YORK TIMES
EVERYONE
knows what dirt tastes like. Last week, I ordered a salad at a
restaurant and found myself crunching on a shoddily washed leaf. I took a
few more sandy bites before explaining the situation to my waiter,
apologizing and asking to see the menu once again.
