Doctor Faustus

I saw this about a month ago and tried to write about it, but so angered was I that in my documents there’s a page which just reads “Bullsh*t production, bullsh*t acting, bullsh*t directing, bullsh*t bullsh*t bullsh*t”. I think enough time has passed that I can try and be more constructive. It’s hard, because yes, this is indeed absolute bullsh*t, but I think I can control myself. I do hate this, I think it’s one of the most hateful things I’ve ever seen, and I absolutely still think it’s utter bullsh*t, but I think I’m able to finally come to terms with why.

Jamie Lloyd likes text. He doesn’t like subtext. When that works, it works: Assassins was haunting, The Hothouse was an inventive reading of that play’s comic set-up, and She Stoops was an absolute joy. When that doesn’t work, it really bloody doesn’t work: Richard III was boring, The Ruling Class was OK but one joke stretched too far, and The Homecoming became all about violent violence, not domesticated violence. Needless to say, his Faustus is all text, and all bullsh*t. It’s so surface level it’s intellectually offensive. When walking into a theatre to see a play about a devil for whom I’m meant to feel sympathy, and the director plays Sympathy for the Devil on the speakers, I can’t help but feel patronised. Another director would be ironic about this fact, but Lloyd isn’t; it either shows an absolute stupidity of vision, or an absolute lack of confidence in the audience. If the former, I expect better, if the latter, I deserve better. Plus, with these mucky white vests and clumsy unison formations, it looked like it had the budget of a student production, albeit none of the necessary inventiveness – a student production wouldn’t have been so boring as to play it so straight, used black vomit to indicate hellishness, used pathetic clichéd unison shouting to indicate demonic-ness. I have no idea why Lloyd chose to direct a show that looks so cheap – it looked cheap aesthetically, and felt cheap intellectually, so it matches, I suppose. It was hell by the numbers, which still had the gall to speak down to me.

A word on the acting – Russell, dragged down from her usual sensitive brilliance, delivered every line as if she should be twirling a moustache. Harrington made her look subtle. It was an amateurish DECLAIM FIRST, characterise later style I haven’t seen since those parody scenes in Red Velvet. At first I assumed it was intentional, a parody of traditional verse speaking, but then Jenna Russell came on and did the same herself, and then he performed Teevan’s bits like Edmund Kean. Is it a choice, or has Lloyd forgotten how to fill a big auditorium convincingly? Perhaps they’ve calmed down by now, but when I saw this there was this utter, hammy desperation to declaim even Teevan’s sh*ttest lines, and it just came across as sad, frankly.

As for the new middle section, I’ve like Teevan’s translations in the past, but what was he thinking? I suppose here I admire him for reading Marlowe’s mythical play and trying to adapt it as a sitcom for E4, but if I wanted to watch an amateur magician not sleep with his roommate, I’d stay home and watch Barney and Robin in How I Met Your Mother, for all the insight this had. Take this part in isolation, as a new play, and it’s simply a bad new play. Using all the powers of hell to become a second rate magician? That makes him a really boring character and I was bored by his boring antics. Nothing happens, the satire is obvious, the characters are flat, the dialogue isn’t creative or believable... It says nothing about temptation, sin, power and everything Marlowe’s about; it says a teeny tiny bullsh*t point about fame corrupting, except even then, even then it doesn’t say that, because Faustus is peculiarly un-corrupt-able and uses his powers so, so, so, so tediously... Marlowe’s play isn’t great, but at least it says something about temptation and sin; what did this actually say, for all its noise? I mean, they invoke political satire when they suggest Faustus has the power to take any politician to task for moral mistakes – a satiric point filled with potential – and waste it on one cheap on-the-nose gag about tax. Any politician, any target, and we have this, an easy point poorly made. This new play is worse than Anya Reiss’ bastardised Chekhovs, it’s a waste of an interesting theme on uninteresting characters, uninteresting plot and absolutely no substance whatsoever, made even worse, even more bullsh*t, by the ugly, uninspired, cheap, pathetic visuals.

That said, so attuned was I to Teevan’s terribleness that when Marlowe finally reared his head again it was a real jar to the system. Much like How I Met Your Mother, this threw a lot of inconsistent ideas in the air and squandered them on a terrible finale. Here there were two major mishandlings of major moments; the first mishandling being tasteless, the second being aesthetic. The Helen Of Troy moment was mishandled in a truly tasteless way: using Mephistopheles’ powers to execute such an act is inherent in a play which features Lust itself, and reading Faustus’ demand for and control of Helen as a rape scene could have been worth an insight worth making, but so unfocused are its earlier sh*tty sitcom scenes that this moment doesn’t end an arc about lust, and is completely out of character for the sexless Faustus of the middle scenes; coming so out of the blue as it does, it feels like a controversial afterthought to be radical, and is testament to how little control over the text this had earlier. Go back to page 7, read cainc’s far more impressive reading of the scene. And then Kit goes to hell, and a teeny weeny smoke machine goes off. A teeny weeny smoke machine. The West End.  The cheapest, clumsiest, most clichéd depiction of hell. A smoke machine. Some of you found the last image haunting. I wish I could. I was distracted. By the smoke machine. By the bullsh*t bloody smoke machine.

So you know what? Sod it. This was absolute, utter, complete bullsh*t, and I hated hated hated hated this bullsh*t bullsh*t play. I hated its bullsh*t direction. I hated its bullsh*t obviousness. I hated its bullsh*t ugliness. I hated its bullsh*t performances. I hated its bullsh*t Marlowe, and I hated its bullsh*t Teevan. I hated its bullsh*t lack of ambition. I hated its bullsh*t nothingness. I hated all of its bullsh*t bullsh*ttiness. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in the West End. It’s worse than wonder.land, at least there was something laughable in that.   It’s bullsh*t theatre, completely and utterly, absolute bullsh*t. Bullsh*t bullsh*t bullsh*t bullsh*t bullsh*t that demeans Marlowe, demeans Teevan, demeans Harrington, demeans Lloyd and demeans me.  Bullsh*t.

And the worst thing? Kit with his kit off isn’t even that attractive.

Jun 2, 2016 9:37:46 GMT @baemax said:

Kit's got a mighty set of abs and a fine bottom (and my saying this is NOT sexism, merely objectification, and I'll thank him to learn the goddamned difference), but the fact he always looks on the verge of tears no matter what he's doing means I just can't be attracted to him. How can anyone have sexy feelings about someone who looks like the mere thought of sexy times will make him cry and thus make you feel guilty?

So if I were to say that Danielle Flett (the nude lady in the show) has beautiful breasts and a luscious curvy bottom you'd be okay with that since it's simply objectification? I'll keep that in mind for the future.