Doctor Faustus

Although it's been over two months since my last post, I've been keeping busy. I'm currently prepping to play Giovanni in John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. And while I love this play and I'm really enjoying working with this group, it's not Shakespeare. By that, I mean that I don't have the sense that this play contains the kind of encoded meaning that Shakespeare's verse does. Consequently, there seems to be less opportunity for discoveries in the text. Of course, I still have more work to do, so I hope I change my mind about that.

I have a couple of other projects on the horizon as well. I'm very excited to be directing a production of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus this Fall. I've begun my work on the text for this play. There are two surviving versions of the play, known as the A-Text and the B-Text (published in 1604 and 1616, respectively... both dates long after Marlowe's death in 1593). Henslowe's Diary notes a payment in November of 1602 of 4 pounds to William Bird and Samuel Rowley for additions to the play. It's not clear which language in either text is attributable to them (although an argument can be made for one scene, which contains several instances of a noun followed by an adjective ending with -al, a phrasing that shows up a lot in Rowley's work).

Anyway, there's no way to know with any certainty which is the "true" text. But I don't really believe in that sort of thing, anyway. These texts were not considered sacred in their time, and while I do want to treat the play with respect, it isn't a holy relic. The chief thing is playability. So, I've started my work, which is to go through both versions of the text (edited by David Bevington) and compare them word for word. When I find a conflict between the two versions, my sole determining factor is which phrasing I think is stronger. In at least one instance, though, I plan to leave the choice between the two versions up to the actor. I think I may find be more of those, as I continue to work through the text.