Originally produced at the Lyric Hammersmith with Liverpool’s own Jodie McNee in the title role, Chris Bush’s gender-reversed retelling of Faust comes to Chester in this new Storyhouse Originals production, co-produced with their Company in Residence, Fallen Angels Dance Theatre.
As with so many earlier writers who have dramatized or set the legend of Faust, Bush has found her own unique series of worlds for the characters to inhabit. Johanna Faustus, played here in engagingly youthful fashion by Olivia Sweeney, is tormented by the loss of her mother who was hanged for witchcraft, and is desperate to know whether she had made a pact with the devil. She herself signs Lucifer’s book in return for the chance to see if her mother’s signature is there. The joy of discovering that it is not is then replaced by the despair of finding herself condemned to time-travel agelessly through the centuries whilst her soul remains Lucifer’s property.
Storyhouse’s thrust stage is transformed into a dank underworld, with a ceiling of suspended tree roots louring over it amidst dripping water. Faustus’ travels see her live through the plague and the Great Fire of London, and witness the Curies’ discovery of Radium and the emergence of the world’s first female doctor. Each of the performers playing both named characters and allegorical ones (such as war, famine and pestilence) also appear as differing guises of Mephistopheles, constantly needling away at Johanna, as she battles with the conundrum of her own morality and, possibly mortality.
Director Francesca Goodridge treads a fine line between narrative clarity and mystery, and occasionally the storytelling lacks a little focus and maybe jeopardy, but the finely choreographed ensemble performance and visually arresting setting make for a production that oozes atmosphere and tension, and never fails to hold attention.
Faustus, That Damned Woman plays at Storyhouse until 18th February.
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| Olivia Sweeney as Faustus - Photo © Mark McNulty |
Star rating – 4 stars
This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool
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