Getting On A Bit
I’d given up on going to the theatre.
Why? I’m getting old; I seem to have seen everything at least once before; I’m never shocked, confused, delighted. I’m just, plain, bored with theatre. I’ve retired. So it was with a last faint hope that I went to see Bailey Theatre Company put on Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in St John’s Chapel. And I came out thinking, if I’m only going to see one play this year, I couldn’t have chosen a better one.

Directors Sarah Holden-Boyd and Nick Robson‘s minimalist production was almost flawless, and certainly one of the best productions I’ve ever seen in Durham. An intelligent directorial concept, paired with near-perfect casting, simple design and a tight production, meant that the audience of the 11pm showing were always on the edge of their seats, no matter how late it was.

The audience sat in the round, and with only two rows surrounding a relatively small space, the setting was intimate, but the high-ceilinged chapel meant it was never claustrophobic. A small, but compelling live choir augmented the atmosphere, and weren’t just used as "incidental" music.

A Jittery Typewriter
As much of the play consists of the eponymous hero talking to himself, the production had a firm basis with James Elliott, whom I’ve never seen so well-cast: he was pretty much made to play this part. 
Veering between eloquently declamatory and uncontrollably frenetic, Elliott’s performance was in equal parts dangerous, intoxicating and moving. One never felt he was playing this ‘safely’, and his energy and focus were faultless. His delivery was at its most electric during his battles with his conscience, where his voice jittered like a stilted typewriter, giving a wonderfully raw feel to the mood. His occasional addresses to the audience, and the minimal casting of the other roles, made one feel as though the whole saga was a terrible dream – at its height, the atmosphere was so concentrated that I couldn’t tell if perhaps I, too, was one of Faustus’ hallucinations.

The chorus, comprised of Tamsin Comrie, Patrick Neyman and Simon Radford, was a tight and effective way to portray the majority of supporting characters. Their use was minimal, meaning that one never felt they were being used just because the directors had three of the best actors in Durham at their disposal. Mask-work was generally well-judged and didn’t try to overreach itself, as some complex theatrical techniques can be in student productions. The masks abstracted the chorus further, making them seem even more like disembodied voices in Faustus’ head. Although some characterisations bordered on somewhat tiresome caricatures, this was thankfully avoided in the famous ‘seven deadly sins’ scene, which was simply inspired. Symbolism and images took precedence above trying too hard to provide ‘characters’ for these roles, as they aimed to play on emotional responses, rather than simple illustrations. Later on, the travesty of a psalm, sung by Patrick Neyman, trod close to the line of becoming silly, but never did – it remained unabashedly fun - beautifully and simply theatrical. The use of firecrackers and the Timpani drum (sounding very much like an Elizabethan thundersheet!) inspired childlike delight in their simplicity and effectiveness.

Almost Perfect
Ben Salter’s Mephistopheles was a character which I had to warm to, but the strange understatement with which he played the part was effective. Everyone in the chapel jumped about three feet in the air at his entrance, setting the pace for the unpredictability of Salter’s portrayal. More than anything, the quietly turbulent energy of his performance communicated the acutely painful love of God which permeated his every word. The decision to cast Sophie Bicknell as Lucifer was another unusual move which paid off – her quiet intensity was terrifying and ‘terrible’, in the Elizabethan sense of the word. Furthermore, the sex appeal she brought to the role played on the contemporary conception of sin as somehow delicious and desirable. This brought out the fact that, of course, this is a play first and foremost about desire – and this was a deceptively simple manner of communicating the idea.

Overall, then, I was pretty much blown away. It’s hard to know how to criticise a production which didn’t seem to put a foot wrong. It neither under, nor over-estimated the capabilities of the cast or the crew, meaning it felt perfectly pitched and entirely capable. If only more student theatre was this assured, this strongly convinced that what it is doing is not merely good, but also important. This was a production which shocked me – because it was brilliant, yes, but also because it made me care about this play which I have known for years, and have never seen in this light before. It was, quite simply, theatre at its very best, and almost perfect.