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My overall impression
RICHARD ADAMS, The World Socialist Website
Christopher Marlowe’s classic Doctor Faustus gets the full vaudevillian send-up in three-man Sound & Fury’s set-in-Texas production of Doc Faustus. This is a show whose street busker spirit often feels closeted by a black box. Maybe the trio’s pre-show rap advisory was right: this would be a lot more fun if the audience were packed like slim jims and seriously intoxicated. Hilarious in spots, excruciatingly painful in others, the kind of free-form loosey-goosey shtick and patter that might work on the Venice Boardwalk, often seems forced and awkward in the formal setting of lights and (deliberately? missed) sound-cues. When played tightly, the show rocked; when the guys indulged in improvised meta-theatrical banter, it sank. Hard. No echo.Playing over-the-top demands, if anything, even more razor-sharp precision. In that sense, comedy is a far crueler mistress than drama. Just when this show found its groove, a dumb aside would derail the momentum. Outside, on the street, loud and broad asides may be necessary, but inside, a little dead-pan might work wonders. Too often, I’d laugh at a line, a gag, a spit-take, or stage malfunction only to have that chuckle squashed by less than witty on-stage commentary.
It strikes me that the key to landing a dumb joke or god-awful pun is to commit totally, as if it were genius. When performers comment and react too often to what’s just been said or done, the audience doesn’t need to.
