It is some measure of the achievement of director Geoff Gould and designer Patrick Murray that the vast scholastic context of Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus shimmers like an accessible galaxy through this production of a play in which the uses, or price of, scholarship itself provide the drama.
There is no concession to modern ignorance nor need there be although the stylised direction weakens the intrigue by tilting towards intellectual rather than spiritual tragedy.
This reading presents, in Jude Sweeney's Faustus, the man of mischief, curious rather than profound, ambitious rather than driven. Arguable though this may be, we must be grateful: this is a marvellous play.
The action moves smartly through a setting of reversals in which the silver circle of the floor is reflected in a silver disc overhead, with a celestial globe outlined in spirals; lit by Conleth White, the iridescent backcloth is screen and mirror.
Faustus has set his world inside out or upside down (the genders also are reversed), swapping the hope of heaven for the certainty of hell as the price of power, but not of wisdom. This is not a reflective man, simply a greedy one, bored with the rigid studies of his time: necromancy, he thinks, is the only way to rule "all that moves between the quiet poles . . . 'Tis magic that doth ravish me."
This Faustus and his bargain do not ravish us; the tone is too shallow. The apparition of Helen of Troy, too, is prosaic although Dorothy Cotter (aka devil, friar and pope) is a very attractive actress.
Gould's touch seems faultless when it comes to style and coherence but fragile where the big challenges of casting, or imagery in the case of Helen, are concerned. Despite excellent work from an excel lent company, especially that of Caroline Lynch's measured chorus, we are left at the end agreeing with Marlowe's early reminder: "Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man . . ."
Runs until May 27th. Booking from 021-501673.