RUSSELL JACKSON 3

Doctor Faustus in Manchester Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus resembles Don Giovanni in its unnerving combina- tion of awesome morality and worldly delight. It is not simply a question of a guilty charactex‘s ability to arouse sympathy; both works challenge precon- ceptions as to the treatment appropriate to such fables. Even if we admit that Doctor Fuustus is an editor’s nightmare, and that the best text we can assem- ble must lack the power and cohesion of an assumed original, we are still left with a general scheme of comic and tragic scenes. Marlowe does not go as far as Mozart and Da Ponte: in his closing scene there is no equivalent of Leporello crouching under the table or the ensemble that follows the Don’s acceptance of his final dinner invitation. The beginning and end of Mar- lowe’s play have a consistency of tone which have been taken as an earnest of what once occupied the middle. Reviewers of the play in performance have returned again and again to this view - two peaks with a tedious valley between - to account for their disappointment. W. A. Darlington, in a notice of the 1946 Stratford-upon-Avon production (with Robert Hams and Hugh Griffith as Faustus and his attendant spirit) went so far as to deny Marlowe’s ability to handle theatrical techniques of the kind demanded by ‘audiences hardly educated beyond the fairground stage’, and observed that Marlowe is ’great’ when he ‘gets his effects poetically rather than dramatically’ (Daily Telegraph, 13 July 1946). J. C. Trewin remarked of Clifford Williams’ revival (Stratford-upon-Avon, 1968) that ’the better the director, the more one rec- ognizes the emptiness of those central scenes’ (Birmingham Post, 28 June 1968). Irving Wardle found nothing in the same production to change ’the usual view of Dr Faustus as a maddening collaboration between a sublime dramatic poet and a hack prankster’ (The Times, 29 June) John Barton’s wholesale revision of the play, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 1974, prompted Robert Cushman to reflect that the middle scenes, ’traditionally, and quite legitimately, dismissed as buffoonery‘, seemed ’a rather poor price to get for one’s soul’: ’but there is a self-congratulatory note about the writ- ing of these scenes, thin as they are, which prevents one from assuming that this is necessarily what Marlowe meant‘ (Obseruer, 1 September 1974). One solution is to cut ruthlessly and throw all the responsibility on the leading actor, a tactic proposed by Stark Young at the beginning of his review of Orson Welles’s 1936 New York performance: ’Only a variety of emotional pressures on the part of the actor. . . can register for the audience the stages of Faustus’ struggle and his progression toward that climax of damnation.’] Adrian Noble’s production, at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, benefits from a strong, sympathetic direction of the‘buffoonery’ and power-

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ful performances by both Ben Kingsley (Faustus) and James Maxwell (Mephostophilis). Its clarity and vigour demonstrate that even as we have it the play carries conviction, and that it can be given unity and coherence without interpolation or savage cutting.

A bell tolls to summon the audience. When the lights go down, the same bell is calling black-gowned academics to chapel. They cross the stage with an easy but business-like pace and that demure consciousness of the dignity conferred by their gowns that is a familiar feature of degree-day processions. As the Chorus - the bell-ringer, but evidently excused chapel - turns to the audience and begins his speech, an anthem is heard echoing in the ceiling of the hall that encloses the theatre. The audience sits round a circular, planked floor; in the centre a circle is marked with magic symbols. Over it stands a platform raised on metal ladders to the level of the first gallery. The boards leading through the audience to the four entrances impose a cross on this circular configuration. A black wuoden cross hangs over the door which seems to lead to the chapel. Faustus absents himself from divine service - ’his chiefest bliss‘, as a gesture from the Chorus indicates - and mounts the platform to perch among his books.

This simple, unpretentious opening establishes Faustus’s isolation, his aspiring to new heights of knowledge (he is in fact climbing at ‘His waxen wings did mount above his reach‘) and his position in a pious, dignified and learned community. Faustus is placed in a bright light in full view of every member of the audience, a soul under scrutiny from the beginning. From his perch he reads us a lecture on the whole of human and divine learning, pick- ing on Aristotle, Galen, Justinian and Jerome’s Bible like so many dunces at a grand viva voce. His own quibbles become deliberations and his rasping, cavilling tone reduces established positions to quibbles. He reduces the con- tents of the Bible to the fatalistic absurdity ofche surd, surd, pushes the book to one side and unfolds the black cloth that conceals his necromantic books. When Valdes and Cornelius arrive, one young and one venerable, it is evi- dent that they are the leaders of a magicians’ faction within the college, eager to recruit a popular don, so ready with hissicprobo and so adept at gravelling pastors with concise syllogisms. The sense of an academic world is carried into the Good and Evil Angels, who both wear black gowns (no caps or hoods). On his first appearance theGood Angel offers to take Faustus’s book out of his hands, while the Bad leans over the doctor’s shoulder and whis- pers in his ear. The emphasis is on their belonging to the world of Faustus‘s mind, rather than their supernatural agency. We are still in the college bounds in the following scene, when two scholars try to question Wagner, Faustus’s scout (as much of a smart-alec as his master) and decide to go and inform the Rector of their suspicions.

Doctor Faustus in Manchester 5

This academic background has a gravity and sobriety against which Faus- tus can revolt, and to which he will eventually return. When the fall comes it involves a physical liberation. Ben Kingsley impresses by the energy unleashed once Faustus begins to conjure and his nervous, child-like desire to be up and doing once he has made his pact. In the conjuring scene he lies on his back in the magic circle, arms and legs stretched out, writhing in the self-abandonment of his art. Murmurs, rattles and groans echo in the black- ness outside the auditorium, veiled figures move silently along the gangway behind the seats on the first gallery and the sounds reach a climax when Faustus utters the name Mephostophilis. The spirit first appears as a bent, malevolent imp, with a cloven hoof. He limps menacingly towards Faustus and is about to enter the circle when he is commanded to reappear as a Friar. The imp gazes sullenly at Faustus for a moment, turns on his hoof and slowly and deliberately limps off. This raises serious doubts as to Faustus's ability to see things aright, for it contradicts his claim that Mephostophilis is 'pliant. . . Full of obedience and humility!'

When the Friar appears it is soon evident that he is a match for Faustus. He desires his soul with an earnest solicitude that suggests love. Later, as Faus- tus is writing the deed, jabbing impatiently at his arm with the pen, Mephos- tophilis stands patiently to one side, a candle lighting up his face as he peers forwards and reflects 'What will not I do to obtain his soul!' Later, at the Papal court and in their dealings with the Emperor and Benvolio, Mephos- tophilis and Faustus enjoy a cameraderie that seems genuine and unforced. When the spirit pinions Faustus' arms after the appearance of the Old Man ('Thou traitor, Faustus, I arrest thy soul') the brutal gesture is shocking after their earlier companionship. The final betrayal ("Twas I, when thou wert i' the way to Heaven.. .') is delivered by Mephostophilis from the cross where Faustus expects to see the image of his Saviour. This relationship is a subtle and effective means of binding the parts of the play together. Mephostophilis does not register contempt, is not sarcastic or haughty: he is a familiar of Faustus, a friend. When in taking leave of the scholars Faustus embraces one of them ('Ah, my sweet chamber-fellow') we are reminded of the community he rejected when he summoned the spirit.

James Maxwell's performance brings out by contrast the shallowness of Faustus's personality. The conjurer's bumptious lecture on stoicism - 'Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude' - is the more appalling for the sim- plicity and sincerity of Mephostophilis's admonition, 'Why this is Hell, nor am I out of it.' He deals frankly with his 'master' whose response is cocksure pedantry and insensitive, inoportune questions. Faustus is given a crown, a staff and an enveloping cape that billows out to fil l the stage when attendant spirits hold it up. This majestic spectacle, with Faustus at its centre, is

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quickly interrupted when he hands over the contract. He sits down on his stool to question Mephostophilis about Hell, turning away from the unan- swerable truth to demand a wife. He admits to being wanton and lascivious with awful prurience, smirking and wriggling his hips. The 'wife' appears in a white bridal gown and veil, lit brilliantly from behind by a white spotlight. The figure lifts up its skirts invitingly and Faustus puts his hand under the crinoline. With a yell he pulls out his hand, severely bitten, and the veil is lifted to reveal a simian mask. After this, he is quite happy to accept the offer of a daily supply of courtesans.

Like most of Noble's devices, this has a surreal quality, at once more sur- prising and sinister than the text's stage-direction for a 'Devil, dressed like u woman, with fireworks'. When Baliol and Belcher appear to torment the clown they are evil-faced choirboys armed with rods who ride round the stage on black bicycles. The Seven Deadly Sins are a slow procession of oatmeal- coloured wraiths, led in by a barefooted boy playing a recorder - Lechery brings up the rear, pushing Sloth in a pram. The leg pulled off by the horse- courser looks real, with a bone and jagged, bloody tatters of flesh at the top. Mephostophilis on the cross has the crown of thorns and loincloth of Christ. This attention to visual detail is essential in the intimacy of this theatre, and Noble brings off moments of grand guignol (Faustus burning his arm with a candle) and spectacle with great effect. It is a fine show with plenty of good tricks, but never an unduly self-conscious one. There is a good deal of doub- ling among the cast of fourteen men, one woman and two boys, but no metatheatrical flummery of the kind that is becoming tedious at Stratford the audience is not reminded that it is watching members of Equity pretend- ing to be Elizabethan players, exercising their well-known rapport and resourcefulness. The grand public scenes, especially those in Rome, are impressively regal with economy of means. Formal, stately movement, bril- liant costumes, peals of organ music and showers of glittering foil petals bring on the Pope and his cardinals. Helen is an Elizabethan queen, lowered from the roof of the theatre in a column of light and a cloud of gold dust. In the final moments a mighty wind blows Faustus to perdition, into the black-hell-mouth over which Lucifer and Beelzebub preside impassively. The wind blows out the candles and ruffles the pages of the books in the magic circle, filling the air with dust and smoke. Faustus can barely gasp his last appeal, exhaling the name of Mephostophilis with his dying breath. By this time he is an exhausted man. He lies down again in the circle, but it gives him no strength to reach up to his God. He has exchanged the dignified robes for a shift, and his voice has lost that authority and trenchant tone that it once possessed. Although Ben Kingsley seemed to take the speech at too much of a gallop (he had great difficulty in wrapping his tongue round

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Ben Kingsley in Doctor Faustus.

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’Pythagoras’ metempsychosis’) the hysteria and desperation were power- fully effective.

The feeling that a journey has been accomplished, and that a life has been experienced in the performance’s two and a quarter hours is attributable partly to Ben Kingsley’s acting, partly to the development of his relationship with Mephostophilis. But a good deal of the credit should go to Adrian Noble‘s treatment of the comic scenes - the notorious’trough’. The B-text is used, omitting some short passages and a few entire scenes: Benvolio’s revenge and its aftermath (xiii and xiv in Jump’s edition), the tavern (xvi), the court of Vanholt (xvii), the scholars’ discovery of Faustus’s body (xx) and the final chorus. Scene vii, in which Robin has stolen the book, is played bet- ween scenes v and vi, with Faustus remaining in the centre of the stage (as he does during scene ii, Wagner and the Scholars). Thus the comic episodes enclose and complement the serious, and Mephostophilis moves invisible about the outer stage, turning the pages of the book for Robin as he has just done for Faustus, helping with the pronunciation of Demogorgon and whispering in Dick‘s ears some of the drinks that await him in the tavern. Earlier Wagner‘s chop-logic echoes Faustus’s treatment of Aristotle and the rest and the parallel is reinforced by his master’s unacknowledged presence on stage.

The transformation of Robin and Dick into ape and dog, like the horse- courser and Benvolio jokes, has a more sinister tone than the early low-life scenes or the Pope’s feast. The latter is slapstick in which Faustus has child- ish fun, bouncing up and down in the throne, stealing cups and dishes, tweaking the Pope’s nose and pushing a meringue into his face. He and Mephostophilis seem to be having a good time - they loll on a rug, planning the jests, exhilarated by their impersonation of the Cardinals and the freeing of Bruno. By contrast, Faustus’s treatment of Benvolio is angry and spiteful, and the man is in danger of his life - the horns when they come off are seen to have bloody roots. The horse-courser scene is introduced by lines from the end of scene x, indicating that Faustus has got as far as theGreat Turk‘s court. The horse-courser is a turban’d turk, and Faustus carries a travelling bag. In this scene he is weary, and his jubilation is short-lived. Faustus’s journey is an attempt to forget his contract and its approaching maturity. The overall effect of these scenes is not reductive irony, showing Faustus squandering his powers on trivial shows, but an impression of the honour, pleasure and pageantry he enjoys. The ultimate emptiness of these amuse- ments is the greater for their temporary satisfaction. It is questionable whether the same result would have attended the inclusion of the tavern, ambush and Vanholt scenes. The Vanholt scene is, after all, the weakest of the comic episodes, although Clifford Williams enlivened it with exploding

Doctor Faustus in Manchester 9

grapes (not in normal circumstances a spectacular fruit) and other directors have introduced sexual by-play between Faustus and the Duchess.

When he returns to Wittenberg Faustus seems exhausted, mentally and physically. His feast with the scholars is solemn and loving. They sit in a cir- cle round a tray of candles, pledging each other with a loving cup and hold- ing lighted tapers, as Mephostophilis moves silently in the background, pouring wine. Faustus‘s experience seems to have brought a softening in his behaviour towards other people, and the scholars are moved and shocked when he tells them the truth about his powers. The Old Man is a blind sage, led by a boy. His exhortations have a profound effect of Faustus, who stands in his circle, stretching a hand out to touch his robe as he departs.

This Doctor Faustus impresses as a spectacle and as a logical, faithful account of a difficult play. Its ironies are strongly but deftly marked, and it makes distinctions where other productions have failed to find any - its parallelisms are never clumsy. Thus, the shining Lucifer and grubby, petu- lant Beelzebub are distinguished from one another, and Faustus’s three encounters with women (‘Hot whore’, Lechery and Helen) are properly reminiscent of one another. In the case of Helen it is the splendour of the vis- ion rather than its sexuality that delights. The production lends support to the contention that Marlowe was a good judge of theatrical effect and that the shows - if not the language - of the middle part of Faustus have variety and richness. It makes excellent use of the opportunities afforded by the intimacy of the theatre and its peculiar acoustics (including the echo that can be an embarrassment in plays set in someone’s drawing-room). Although Faustus and Mephostophilis are the only parts in which character can develop and interact, the other roles are played with spirit and conviction. Bob Crowley’s designs are handsome and George Fenton’s music is in the same class as work by Guy Woolfenden and Stephenoliver. This is a notable event in the stage-history of Marlowe’s plays.

Notes Stark Young, Immortal Shadows: a Book of Dramatic Criticism (New York, 1948; paperback reprint, New York, n.d.), p. 160.

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