Dr Faustus
432 years ago this week, on May 30th 1593, a man died in mysterious circumstances. He was Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan dramatist most famous for Doctor Faustus and for his influence on Shakespeare.
The achievement of Christopher, known even in his lifetime as Kit Marlowe as poet and dramatist, was enormous—surpassed only by that of his exact contemporary, William Shakespeare, but is somewhat eclipsed by the drama of his short life as a gay athiest spy, and his death – he was murdered in a tavern brawl aged 29. The official explanation for his death – he was stabbed in the eye – was a dispute over the bill.
More likely is that his political activities caught up with him and he was killed to shut him up. Another possibility, equally likely, is that he was suspected of being a secret Catholic which was only slightly less heinous than being thought an atheist, which he was. No question, he was a hell-raiser – heretic, hedonist, and a spy for Elizabeth I.
Somehow in this busy life he found time to write Tamberlaine, Dido, Queen of Carthage, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second and, of course, Doctor Faustus, and a slew of poetry as well as a number of other plays whose authorship is unverified but probably written by him.
Doctor Faustus is Kit Marlowe’s most renowned and controversial work. Famous for being the first dramatised version of the Faustus tale, the play depicts the sinister aftermath of Faustus’s decision to sell his soul to the Devil’s henchman in exchange for power and knowledge.
How must Dr Faustus been received by an Elizabethan audience? The Devil, very real to most in that audience, on stage in front of them on a stage set with gunpowder flashes, and a real demon that many of them believed to have been sent to torment them. It must have been mayhem.
In the first-ever staging of this menacing drama at the Globe Theatre, Matthew Dunster’s production features Paul Hilton as the arrogant, power-hungry Faustus and Arthur Darvill as the sardonic Mephistopheles, and includes several impressive magical stunts along the way – see link above.
The link below is a short and informative video biography of Marlowe.
The post Ruth Leon recommends…Christopher (Kit) Marlowe – Playwright, poet and spy appeared first on Slippedisc.
