New & updated links! (23/05/03)

oobleck

Oobleck does Faust (in NYC !)

Venture deep into the pit of hell (the F train entrance is recommended)and sell your soul for a seat!
Ben Schneider (forlorn star of FringeNYC 2000's hit Lost Beckett shorts/briefs/boxers) returns to the Fringe with the critically acclaimed Chicago actor Colm O'Reilly (as the sweetly silent mysterious one)in playwright Mickle Maher's powerfully pointless one-act play:

An Apology
for the course & outcome of certain events delivered by Doctor John Faustus on this his final evening

Read the Reader's "Critic's Choice"

A lean, to-the-meat-of-the-matter version of the Faustus story.
An Apology is a chilling, suspenseful tragi-comedy of doom,
meaninglessness, and the super-infinite Hell that surrounds us all.

Oobleck presents the possibly tragical Doctor in the last hour of his mortal existence, irritated, whining, drunk, complaining, and repentant of nothing but his failure to keep a proper diary. While raining abuse on his silent servant Mephistopheles, he tells the fantastic tale of his final day and reminisces on the wonders of a life infected by an immeasurably vast evil -- an evil so vast as to be uncontainable by any memory, human, demonic, or divine.

Mickle Maher is also the author of the Oobleck productions

  • The Pope is Not a Eunuch
  • When Will the Rats Come to Chew Through your Anus?
  • Gone

And the highly acclaimed THEATER THREE production of his Invasion of Desire and the Resistance to that Desire.




You certainly don't need any special knowledge to enjoy Mickle's play,
but some of you just seem to desire reading material.

Here are links to the complete on-line scripts for Goethe's FAUST
and Christoper Marlowe's DR. FAUSTUS. Thank you, Harvard Classics.

"The Faust Tradition from Marlowe to Mann Links" (an excellent jump-site for on-line Faust resources)

Highly recommended film versions of the story of Faust:

F.W. Murnau’s "Faust" (1926 silent)

CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW (This Photo Only)
The forces of the prince of darkness riding across the sky. The prince of peace, a flaming-haired angel with enormous wings, wagers the world with the prince of darkness, Mephisto. Mephisto covers a city resting in the mountains with his cloak, which dissolves into a dark cloud of plague . . .


Jan Svankmejer’s "Faust" (1994 Czech)

. . . a man finds an egg inside a loaf of bread - when opened, it unleashes a thunderstorm. A map leads him to an ancient courtyard, where he sees a man running in panic from a doorway. Investigating, he finds a cellar full of costumes and stage furniture. Picking up a scorched copy of Goethe's Faust, he assumes the title role, complete with wig and cloak as a performance is about to begin . . .

Jan Svankmajer: Alchemist of the Surreal (an excellet web site)
The background for this page is from the portrait of an alchemist contemporary of Faust, Paracelsus (1493-1541).




[Main Page] [Recent Shows] [Oobleck History] [Old Soapbox (our manifesto)] [Links]