Skip to main contentPortland playwright Joseph Fisher's latest piece is such a successful burlesque of Goethe's Faust that his play's second half is as convoluted and unsatisfying as that of its source. Still, this is a very strong production from Stark Raving Theatre, ranking with its own staging of Electropuss as one of the more audacious and assured pieces of local theater this year--though the two plays also share similar problems.
The first part of Fisher's play has a marvelous Weimarish feel to it, with the action inhabiting the limits of a cabaret (God, cleverly if not perceptively, is a disco ball). We find Faust pining for the voluptuous Gretchen, a smoke- and coffee-voiced torch singer who headlines this world. Enter Mephistopheles dressed in leather and a brocade smoking jacket, trailing Sloth and Lust like two fucked-up Tiller Girls, along with the "Doomed Soul of Frank Sinatra." What follows is a series of surreal jaunts through Hell, the last day on Earth, Fisher's autobiography, and Paris in Springtime, courtesy of President Jacques Chirac. Yet these backdrops to the Manichaean struggle for the famed alchemist's soul grind to a halt when a third option to good and evil is introduced: None of the Above, as advocated by forest fairies under the guidance of their leader, Becky-Sue the Fairy Princess.
The woodland world of Act II, imagined as an endless rave, quickly deteriorates into cartoon (as did, sadly, Electropuss when it was staged at Stark Raving last spring), and Fisher's message, or what passes as one, is maundered over by the principal characters in spotty verse past endurance. Perhaps the biggest problem in the play is Faust himself, whom Fisher paints as pretty passive. He's rarely an active agent in his fate, preferring a studied inertness.
Goethe wisely twinned the tumult in Faust's mental and spiritual life with the contemporary upheavals in the playwright's time, as Europe struggled with the Age of Enlightenment. Making Faust the inventor of virtual reality as Fisher does is a stroke of genius that should have lent itself to a similar exploration of themes, especially as enlightenment is now a rare commodity in cow-herd America. Unfortunately, Fisher waffles, and the ending will surprise only those unfamiliar with David Cronenberg's eXistenZ.
Matthew Zrebski's production of Faust. Us. is certainly the strongest work yet from this young director. As with Michelle Seaton's handling of Electropuss, you are never in doubt that there's an active intelligence behind the design. Zrebski's score, though sometimes obtrusive, is also maturer than many of his earlier offerings.
The cast is also sound. Nanette Pettit's Gretchen is excellent, managing to be both comical and moving. The Mephisto and Becky-Sue of the Starbirds--Neal and Julie, respectively--are suffused with energy and invention. Actor Tom Moorman faultlessly plays Himself (as he so frequently does), while Paul Floding has, at last, found his voice and footing on stage again after a string of lackluster performances. His Doomed Soul of Frank Sinatra and Jacques Chirac are simply hilarious.
With so much material to work with, Fisher's Faust. Us. could yet experience some exciting alchemical transmutation.
Stark Raving Theatre and Theatre Vertigo at the CoHo Theatre, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 232-7072. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 7 pm Sundays. Closes Jan. 17. $10 (students)-$18.
WWeek 2015