Doctor Faustus NYC Reviews and Tickets

"The wicked fun and games Faustus and friends get up to don’t appear particularly naughty or even enjoyable...The production’s central problem remains Mr. Noth’s inability to invest his 'Doctor Faustus' with palpable inner life. He’s not terribly convincing either in his moments of unbridled pleasure and pride in doing dark deeds, or as a tormented man grappling with the vestiges of his conscience. In the end, Mr. Noth’s Faustus comes across as a man who doesn’t actually have a soul to sell."
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"Faustus’s inner turmoil doesn’t resonate with as much force as the buffoonery of yokels or the wonderfully weary malevolence of devil Mephistopheles. Danger in this madcap production comes largely from smashing the fourth wall, especially when Faustus meets the Seven Deadly Sins. Gluttony gobbles doughnuts, Covetousness eyes audience members’ bags and Mephistopheles tracks the scent of Pride into the house. It’s a form of terror, sure, but not the sort that plumbs the depths of hell."
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"This is the play that is supposed to grab us by the scruff of the neck and shake us silly. This is the play that is supposed to pull us back from the edge. This is the play that is supposed to make us shout from the rooftops that what we have and what we are is just fine, thank you very much. This production does no such thing."
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"Director Andrei Belgrader, who adapted Christopher Marlowe’s play with David Bridel, plays the show for all its loosey-goosiness. He pumps in dry ice, which works, and pipes in disembodied voices, which sound goofy. He has clowns break the fourth wall and interact with the audience. Puppetry lends a laugh. The play’s abrupt ending isn’t graceful; the story basically falls off a cliff. Overall, it’s a familiar tale, easy to take. No deadly sin in that."
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"Christopher Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' is performed so rarely on our shores it's a shame that the current revival by the Classic Stage Company is such an ill-conceived mess. Starring a miscast Chris Noth in the title role, this rendition directed by Andrei Belgrader strains so hard to emphasize the Elizabethan play's farcical aspects that it totally extinguishes its emotional resonance. At the end, 'Doctor Faustus' may indeed wind up eternally damned, but you won't care a whit."
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"This new adaptation by David Bridel and director Andrei Belgrader swerves between thoughtful monologues and comedy so broad that you could run a horse-drawn cart through it...While this show embraces both the play’s high and low points, it doesn’t deliver either extreme very well. Only Grenier looks at ease with the serious stuff, while the comedy, which relies way too much on cheesy audience participation, doesn’t go far enough."
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"But does any of this work? Hell no. But as is often the case with any kind of trainwreck theater, the brazen up-yours to convention becomes a sort of alluring pageantry in itself, however wrongheaded much of it is. One just wishes someone told Noth, who seems to be doing the same jut-jawed straight-man act we’ve seen for years now. Getting through this 'Doctor Faustus' might be your own personal deal with the Devil in many ways, but I’d be a damned liar if I said I was ever bored by a moment of it."
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"His fast-and-furious revival of the work emphasizes the text's low humor over just about everything else. Is it jarring? Yes. But in a vein similar to Marlowe's original. Still, Belgrader's vision turns 'Doctor Faustus' into an unexpected treat that just may be the comic hit of the summer...But with Belgrader emphasizing the shtick, Noth is placed at an extreme disadvantage. He has the makings of an intriguing Faustus, brooding and intelligent, and handsome, but he's not commanding enough to pull back the focus to his own journey after the comic scenes, from which he's largely absent."
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