Posted on: Sunday, April 29, 2001
Stage Review
UH production of 'Faust' falls flat
By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic
Eleven years in the planning, rehearsing since September, then held hostage by a faculty strike that almost scrapped the production, Goethe's "Faust" opened a week late on Thursday at the University of Hawai'i's Kennedy Theatre.
It's almost as if someone had made a bargain with the devil.
Directed by Dennis Carroll, the production uses a contemporary translation by Robert David MacDonald and features a large student cast. Sets are by Joseph Dodd, costumes by Sandra Finney, music by Anthony Bergamo, lights by Kelly Berry and videos by Kurt Wurmli.
Three actors share the role of Faust (Bill Carr, Scot Davis and Blake Kushi) while Moses Goods and Helen Lee split the role of Mephistopheles. Each part runs about three hours with intermission. I saw the Thursday and Friday evening performances for this review.
In Part I, Mephistopheles bets with God that he can bring about the downfall of Faust — the brilliant but troubled academic. Faust is tempted and gives up his soul for earthly pleasure, realized in the form of Gretchen, who falls but is reunited with God, as Faust flees with the devil.
Feel free to call this heavy, 19th-century moralizing. MacDonald's translation lightens things up a bit with disarming forthrightness and a humorous rhyme scheme — "I'd damn my soul to hell this very minute, if it weren't for the fact that I were already in it" — but the overall tone remains ponderous.
Although the plot offers several scenes, the action is static. Major characters remain rooted in place on an otherwise black stage while the chorus pushes them around on wheeled platforms — industrial-looking, high-tech carts. The pushcarts split and recombine even within scenes, allowing Faust to step forward into a playing area that didn't exist only seconds before. It's a concept that stays interesting for about half of the first act, but wears thin when there is still too much play left.
Costumes are uniformly red and black, with little variation or attempt to create character. Lighting is murky, filled with deep shadows and narrow pools of light. Computerized music and graphic, black-and-white projections add additional somber notes.
These production choices throw heavy focus back on the actors, giving increased importance to the spoken word. Although there are some exceptions, the university cast, as a whole, isn't up to that demand. Dialogue lacks sharpness, clarity and variety.
Nevertheless, Danel Verdugo does well in her short appearance as Martha, and Carr has some good moments as the elder Faust in Act One. In Act Two, the Faust personality is split into two opposing younger halves, played by Davis and Kushi. As Mephistopheles, Goods has all the oily lines, while Lee dances and pantomimes the character's female nature.
The cumulative effect of all the rhyming, carting, dooming and glooming is to make one edgy and impatient. Fortunately, the bargain I made with my feet allowed me to leave the theatre, regretting only a little that I missed the orgy scene on Walpurgis Night and Gretchen's trip to the guillotine for having murdered her child.
Faust, reportedly, survives her.
Part II: The second part of Goethe's epic is rarely produced and is a definite challenge for an audience. In it, Faust continues his survey of the human condition, ranging through time and space, dropping in on various scenes, much as Scrooge does in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."
Given the unifying theme of Faust's continued lusting after the legendary Helen of Troy, the action offers wider staging possibilities than Part I. The industrial wagons are parked elsewhere and director Carroll opens the stage fully to the rear wall, creating a playing area that is immensely deep, high and wide.
Lighting continues to be shadowy, but Finney has more opportunity for costuming, since much of the first act takes place in an ancient Emperor's court in full-blown decadence. The Emperor and his mistresses recline on a massive bed which, not surprisingly, is mounted on wheels and rolled around during much of the action.
Mephistopheles continues his tricks, creating paper money to bail out the Emperor's failing treasury, conjuring up Helen and Paris as a diverting parlor trick, and taking a side trip into a laboratory to create test tube babies. But despite the drunkards, fools, Sphinxes, Sirens and Trojan Women, "Faust II" is decidedly flat.
While Carroll involves his chorus in much of the action and Finney gives them eye-appeal, they fail to capture the language and give it immediacy or fire. Even Goods' devil and Davis and Kushi's split-personality Faust seem listless and lost in reciting words, words, words.
