Faust (Parts One and Two) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (review)

its passive, confused protagonist who gets swept along in an unrelenting succession of short scenes. But unlike Btchner's rough-edged language, Edmond's halting speech, his repetition of words and sentence fragments (commonly held as Mamet's poetic use of colloquial language) lack the urgency of Woyzeck's inarticulateness. Indeed, Edmond bears out Lukacs's prediction that "the more lonely men in drama become, the more the dialogue will become fragmented, allusive, impressionistic in form ... " The mechanism of empathy in "schmaltzified Brecht" relies on the spectator 's complicity in the dramatic illusion, as in naturalism, and on a new dimension provided by narration, direct address, monologue within an illusionistic structure-the invitation into the protagonist's mind. The audience becomes confessor without being distanced from the character, and identifies with his victimization because they too are victims-victims of the aesthetic experience which has required them to surrender themselves to it. Emotionally involved, sentimentally subsumed, the audience becomes just ns passive and powerless as the characters they observe. FAUST (PARTS ONE AND TWO) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Directed by Christopher Martin Classic Stage Company (New York) Gautam Dasgupta In commemoration of Goethe's one hundred and fiftieth death anniversary, the Classic Stage Company embarked on an ambitious project that would do any theatre proud-the staging of Parts One and Two of Faust, an American premiere. At a time of financial belt tightening, with most theatres looking out for short plays with few characters to produce, one can only admire CSC's daring to bring this monumental romantic drama to the stage. Here was a task that a National Theatre in any other country would have considered one of its highest achievements, but, alas, in the absence of such a stage (or even of theatres that regularly present classics of our dramatic repertoire) one needs be grateful to CSC for assuming such a mantle in these times. And while thankful for having had the opportunity to see the entire sevenhour Faust as Goethe himself had conceived it (here staged on two separate evenings), I am nonetheless of two minds when I think back on the theatrical and dramatic viability of this vast stage poem. Although the first part is more accessible than the second (and hence staged with somewhat greater regularity), both sections suffer from a surfeit of excursions into diverse adventures that embody Faust's questing for knowledge without quite embracing them in a cohesive dramatic statement. If there is any 83 0 0 S single protagonist in this expansive vision of the world, it is.surely the human desire incessantly to search for the infinitude of all that can be known, a search that can hardly be contained within the finite resources of any dramatic form. At best, and this was indeed Goethe's intention, the play in all its fragmentariness and obtuseness could only gain in dramatic power through the inventiveness of its staging. It is a work that demands, more so than other plays, interpretive directorial strategies If it is to come to life on stage. 84 For a play that stretches to the utmost the resources of the theatre, the CSC production, under Christopher Martin's direction, wisely chose the route of reducing to the minimum elaborate uses of theatrical props and necessities. The stage itesif. mostly bare except for a mound of books piled high, was lit eloquently from above and below in an otherworldly glow that bathed it in contrasting areas of light and shadow. The few required props, brought on stage when needed, were minimal in their making, the entire production relying more on the suggestive powers of its audience and on the technical proficiency of its actors. The text, adapted from a translation by Philip Wayne, brings to the fore the numerous versifying tactics that Goethe employed in the writing of Faust. From iambics, alexandrines, and trimeters to prose and dubious doggerel, the writing corresponds in its variety to the diversity in life that Faust seeks to capture. Despite the adaptation's deliberate excision of archaic modes of speech, such language on today's stages with contemporary actors seems fated to come across as painfully odd and distanced. While Christopher...