BWW Interviews: The Doctor Is In - Last Act Theatre Company Talks DOCTOR FAUSTUS

Hundreds of years ago, English playwright Christopher Marlowe wrote the world's first theatrical version of a little German legend about a man who sells his soul to the Devil.  That man was Faust, and Marlowe's version, DOCTOR FAUSTUS, will be produced by Austin's own Last Act Theatre Company from October 11^th through October 27^th.

I recently sat down with three key people behind this new production, Business Director and Founding Member Sara Billeaux, the production's Director Kevin Gates, and Faustus himself Ben McLemore.  All three dished on what to expect from their production, those theories that Marlowe may have written some of the works attributed to Shakespeare, and what deals they'd make with the Devil…

BWW: Thank you all for coming and doing this.  I'm really excited to ask you a few questions about this production and the company.  Now before we get started, I'd love to hear about the background of the company.  How did the Last Act Theater Company come about?

SB: Basically, it started off is a group of people who all went to college together in Corpus Christi and all ended up in Austin after graduation.  We just thought "Let's do some theater together," so we started a company called the @ Theatre Project, and under that name we did a show called the GRAND-GUIGNOL which was actually two short plays from the time period of [Antonin] Artaud.  We did that around Halloween of 2010 in the Artaud style, and then after that show we sort of restructured the company and changed the name to the Last Act Theatre Company.

BWW: So you're a relatively new company then.

SB: Yeah.  We just celebrated our 1^st Anniversary since the restructure in August.

BWW: Oh, awesome!  Congratulations!

SB: Thank you.

BWW: So what made you guys decide to do DOCTOR FAUSTUS as your production for this fall?

SB: Well, we try to do one Classical piece a year, and the idea of DOCTOR FAUSTUS was actually brought up to us by a couple of people, Kevin Gates being one of them, and he was so excited about it and we were excited about working with him as a Director, so it all just worked out.

BWW: So Kevin, what about DOCTOR FAUSTUS was appealing to you as a Director?

KG: Well, Early Modern theatre is my area of special interest, and I knew that Last Act was thinking about a Halloween show, so I suggested a few things that I thought were scary or freaky or gory that I thought would be thematically appropriate for a show around Halloween.  I knew they were considering several other shows but they read this one and just decided to go with it.

BWW: How would you describe DOCTOR FAUSTUS to someone who may not be familiar with it?

BM: The show is essentially about a guy who's one of the greatest scholars in all of Europe, maybe all the world.  He's learned pretty much everything there is to learn about everything, and he decides that the last thing he wants to conquer is that he wants to conjure a demon and get it to do his will and he'll use its power to take over the world and satisfy every one of his heart's desires.  So he does this and conjures a demon called Mephistopheles, played by Karen Alvarado in our production, and as time goes on instead of doing all these amazing things he says he's going to do, he kind of squanders his power.  He plays practical jokes on the Pope and doing all of these frivolous things that seem unbefitting someone who has so much power.  As it goes on, he starts to want to repent more and more and realizes that his time will be up because he made a deal with the Devil for 24 years.  As we get closer and closer to the end, he becomes more conscious of, "Oh my God, I really have sold my soul." I won't spoil the ending, but in any case, that's the gist of the plot.  It's really about internal struggle with power and how he uses it.

BWW: What are some of the challenges for all three of you that come with putting on this type of show and bringing a classic piece of English literature and playwriting to life?

KG: One of the main problems with a show like this is the expectations of an Early Modern audience versus the expectations of a current audience.  Early Modern audiences were very comfortable with the idea of one actor playing multiple roles, and we're accustomed to TV where if a show has 200 characters in it, you see 200 actors.  You don't see the same actor playing multiple parts.  I tried to compensate for that by creating this chorus of devils that play the majority of all of the roles in the show.  They remain on stage and observe the action a lot of the time when they're not actually participating.  I think it will be clear to the audience that these devils are coming in and interacting with Faustus and then going back to their position as observers.  I think the audience will be able to respond to that conceit.  Also, this play contains a lot of really long speeches.  Faustus has a lot of internal dialogue with himself which is, I think, less interesting for us because we have realistic acting expectations.  We expect an actor to show us things in a particular way, not give these big, declamatory speeches.   So in many cases, I've taken these longer speeches and broken the separate thoughts down and assigned them to the chorus, so the chorus says these words and they're thoughts in Faustus's head.  But it doesn't become like an actual dialogue.  It's more that his internal dialogue is manifested though different people.  I think it gives the piece a lot more action and makes it a lot more interesting for the audience.

BM: Another big challenge that Kevin and I have talked about is that a lot of the decisions that Faustus makes and his motivations for various things that he does are often very vague or not explained at all.  Despite the fact that he has so much internal monologue, it's often kind of unclear, and that was kind of difficult to peg down for a lot of scenes in the play.  I mean, why does he pick 24 years?  Why doesn't he pick all eternity?  Why is it exactly that he kind of goofs off with all his powers?  But that's been a lot of the fun for me and part of the challenge as an actor to navigate all that and to fill in as many of those blanks as we can in our own original way while still serving the play.

BWW: Let's talk a bit about Christopher Marlowe.  I know there's a fascinating theory that he may have written some of the works attributed to Shakespeare.  What are your thoughts on that theory?

KG: I read a really good book called Shakespeare's Imagery which analyzes image clusters and is fascinating.  The author went through several plays by Shakespeare and most of the works by Marlowe and looked at all of the metaphors and similes they used.  By far the main mode of imagery that Marlowe uses is to the heavens or to astronomy, to the stars.  Something is "brighter than the sun," or "like the moon."  The comparisons to celestial objects are by far the most common in Marlowe's works.  In Shakespeare's works, what are the most common are very pastoral references.  References to farming and to birds quite often, plants, and animal behavior.  It's really interesting.  When you approach it that way, it looks like they're not even close. 

BM: Kevin just gave a very generous, academic viewpoint on that whole issue.  I'll be a bit more blunt.  For the most part, legitimate, serious Shakespeare scholars know that the idea that someone else wrote Shakespeare's plays besides William Shakespeare is a load of bunk.  It's all just a bunch of conspiracy theory.  I will say, it makes for interesting reading and interesting movies and it is fun to think about all of these conspiracies, but the truth is, the greatest plays ever written were written by a farmboy born in Stratford-upon-Avon.

KG: I want to take very, very slight issue with that and say that if you examine how the plays were assembled, I think you can make a really strong argument that there were many, many hands on those plays, not just Shakespeare's.

BM: That's true.  On the other hand, today we don't really want to think about "Oh, this is a collaborative thing, and the greatest plays ever written could be written by more than one guy," but we really do need to be more open to that idea of "Yeah, this is a collaborative thing, and yes, there were more hands working on these plays."  So yes, Kevin's point is exactly right.

KG: None of that is to downplay Marlowe's contribution to Early Modern drama, though.

BM: No.

KG: I have this analogy that Shakespeare is like The Beatles.  Everything that came after Shakespeare was fundamentally changed by what he did, just like The Beatles.  The Beatles were also a product of their time and were influenced by many, many things, and to continue the metaphor, Shakespeare is to The Beatles as Marlowe is to Elvis.  Marlowe came along, took these old forms, made them super sexy, and just blew the theatre up.  He made theatre a popular need, almost singlehandedly.

BM: Yeah, and in one of these books that Kevin has they talk about how a lot of Shakespeare's  earliest plays are very influenced by Marlowe, so much so that Shakespeare's almost trying to get out of the shadow of Marlowe who was a popular playwright.  If you ever see the movie SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, there's a part in that where people are coming to audition for ROMEO AND JULIET, and it's probably not historically accurate that people came and auditioned with monologues the way we do today, but it's kind of fun because person after person who comes to audition does the famous Doctor Faustus speech, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships," and the director and everyone in Shakespeare's company just groans every time.   It's just kind of a funny point that the movie makes that this play in particular and Marlowe were extremely popular before Shakespeare rose to prominence.

BWW: Now one fun question I wanted to ask all three of you is what would you sell your soul for if you were making a deal with the Devil?

KG: I need some time to think about this one…I, of course, would ask for world peace.

[Laughter]

KG: And complete tolerance for all different types of people.

SB: You really think the Devil would give you that?

[Laughter]

BM: Since Kevin already wished for world peace from his Devil, I guess I'd wish for more support, both financially and communally, for the arts and theater in Austin, Texas.  Everyone, come out and come see theater, especially come see DOCTOR FAUSTUS, October 11^th through 27^th.

[Laughter]

SB: Um…I would probably do something similar to what Faustus does.  I'd take some time to do whatever I want and travel the world and experience all these different things without consequence and just accept my end when it came.

BM: Sara's much to sensible to sell her soul anyway.

[Laughter]

BWW: Is there anything else the three of you want to share about the show?

KG: I'd like to say that on the poster, it says that we're doing Christopher Marlowe's DOCTOR FAUSTUS, adapted by Kevin Gates.  There are so many versions of the Faust story that I thought it was important to state that we're doing Marlowe's, and I wanted to put the "adapted by" language there so people come to the theater not thinking that they're necessarily going to see DOCTOR FAUSTUS as it would have been presented in the Early Modern time.  We've changed a few things by having a female Mephistopheles and creating a sort of sexual tension between her and Faustus and creating this chorus that interacts with them in a certain way.  I haven't re-written the text, but the point is that there are certain differences between this production and a straight reading of the script.

BM: We certainly don't want people to think they're going to see a stodgy, Elizabethan play.  I think the way Kevin has staged this and worked things is really unique.  I think our take on the play will hold up really well.

KG: It's sexy.  It's fast.  There's lots of action.  It's got a lot of movement in it.  Great acting.  I think it's going to be a really enjoyable show.

BM: Plenty of sex, violence, carnage, bad language-

BWW: All the stuff that we like.

[Laughter]

BM: Yes!  All the stuff that we like.

BWW: Great!  Well thanks again Sara, Kevin, and Ben, for taking the time to speak with BroadwayWorld.  I can't wait to see the show.

KG: Thank you.

BM: Thank you, Jeff.

SB: Thank you.

Photo: Ben McLemore (center) and the cast of DOCTOR FAUSTUS.

DOCTOR FAUSTUS, produced by The Last Act Theatre Company, plays at 6701 Burnet Road Market October 11^th through October 27^th, Thursdays through Saturdays, at 7:30pm. $15 admission. For tickets and information, visit www.lastacttheater.com.

To post a comment, you must register and login.