First Week of Rehearsal

The first week of rehearsals was great but exhausting, as it always is. The first week of rehearsals was a combination of practical considerations, creative decisions and exploration and team building, as it always is. You can see footage of the actors talking and some of the exercises on physicalisation elsewhere on the website.

Some random thoughts on what has emerged from the text as I look back on our work so far:

• Marlowe is a natural born subvert. It is, after all, a play whose central relationship is between a man born “base of stock” and a fallen angel. Knowing your place in the world – or actually, not knowing your place in the world – or knowing your place but being malcontented is fundamental to the action. Of course, Marlowe was a bright scholarship boy too…..
• Every scene reveals some aspect of this interest in power and status. Wagner - who is far brighter, if less educated than the scholars - wants a servant because he is one. Robin too.
• Look at the difference between what Faustus says he wants to do with unlimited power before he summons Mephistopheles (in Act 1 Scene 1) and after he has summoned Mephistopheles (in Act 1 Scene 3) The difference between “When I’m prime minister” and “Now that I am prime minister”…?
• Close scrutiny of the text always reveals inconsistencies. Plot Robin’s narrative arc, for instance, to see what I mean. In the first scene he is unemployed. When we see him with Rafe, he has been working for their mutual master and mistress for some time, while also being close enough to Wagner and Faustus to pick up a little Latin and steal a book of spells. To call the play “loosely plotted” only just begins to describe it! However, the structure of the narrative and juxtaposition of scenes makes emotional and rhythmic sense.
• The Spanish Armada was 1588. Doctor Faustus probably first performed shortly thereafter. Therefore, for the original audience, the moment at the start of Act 3 when Mephistopheles announces that he has transported them to the Pope’s inner chamber is rather like a play written in the months after 9/11 setting a scene in Bin Laden’s cave ….