Drama Workshop/
Performance

Staff and pupils from East Riding of Yorkshire schools:

South Holderness School
Wolfreton School (33 participants)

Alan McGowan introduces the play

Waiting for the performance to start

Director's Note

In cutting Doctor Faustus down to a two-hander I have not only drastically reduced the number of characters and the length, but also imposed some of the production's interpretation onto the editing process. This has involved the allocation of a number of lines from ‘good’ characters to Mephastophilis, in an attempt at realising more fully the very modern hell that he is in, a hell far removed from images of fire and brimstone. The sense of ambiguity of allegiance that this creates is, I believe, present in some small part in Marlowe's original.

Faustus himself has been altered less. He too is racked with self-doubt and contradiction. In summoning Mephastophilis he is perhaps seeking an outside resolution to his inner turmoil, but this attempted abdication of responsibility is, in fact, a tactic of delay rather than outright avoidance. Thomas Chalk

The Cast: ‘Cut Branch’

Sandy Grierson (Mephastophilis): currently studying English and Latin at the University of Bristol
Tom Wright (Doctor Faustus): currently studying drama at the University of Bristol
Thomas Chalk (director): born in Hull, attended Kelvin Hall and Wyke Sixth Form College before studying English and Drama at Bristol

An earlier production of Doctor Faustus was performed at the University of Bristol in February 1998 with the same cast. The play is heavily cut from Roma Gill's second edition published by New Mermaids

The Rehearsal

Faustus debates whether to sell his soul

Mephastophilis listening to Faustus

Mephastophilis and Faustus negotiate the sale of Faustus' soul