THE setting is almost perfect for this shoestring production of Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus, staged by Alex Pryce's young Edinburgh-based company Chimaera. In a dank, dripping vault beneath Nicol Edwards Pub in the Old Town, an audience of 30 or
so line the walls on pew-like seats; the atmosphere is instantly mediaeval, with a deep sense of the struggle between flesh and faith that is etched into the history of the city, and a definite whiff of the brimstone underworld from which Faustus's demons emerge.
The show that unfolds in this compelling space, though, is more mixed blessing than unqualified triumph. It looks sensational, and adapts Marlowe's text with real skill, surrounding Gary Quinn's lonely Faustus with a shape-changing chorus of six female demons – including Rebecca Hale's frightening Mephistopheles – in ripped fishnets, tartan-punk miniskirts, and scary Goth makeup.
Quinn's Faustus radiates a powerful if baffled male sexuality, morphing from academic geek in the first act to stylish, lipsticked global playboy in the second; and if the vocal and verbal complexity of Marlowe's text sometimes defeats him, there's still a flicker of real star quality in the performance.
Given the structure of the production – which could have been subtitled "Faustus And The Women" – Pearce could have mounted a more thorough and less self-consciously showy exploration of the tortured sexual politics of the Faustus story. But overall, this is a raw, vivid and enjoyably cheeky 90 minutes of theatre, bursting at the seams with theatrical energy and promise.
The full article contains 259 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
