As a kid I often wondered where the darkness went when the lights got switched on at home. This play, from 1938, takes the well-studied and much-hijacked tale of Faust and uses it not as a tired vehicle for equating the biblical “and there was light” light with good and darkness shackled to evil, but rather for debunking the validity of such cultural absolutes.  

Faust himself might, a long time ago, have be seen as the quintessential fool for selling his soul to the Devil in exchange for unlimited goodies. The Devil was for all time the arch deceiver. Men and women relentlessly fought the battle of the sexes in order to be womanly or manly. But here, Gertrude Stein mischievously writes down the very value/existence of souls, questions whether the devil ‘deceives’ just because he lies (Trump might well agree), whether ladies are internally just one person or more (and can be equally well played two-for-one, as here, and by a man) and whether definitively precise language is much use in either life or drama. Stein was ever at pains to stress the importance of all people not cementing themselves in the role of “any one thing”.  

Stein was also much noted for her durable aphorisms, such as “a rose is a rose is a rose”, which often curiously flatten out language. This one hour production would be less than half that if all the monotonously repeated words and phrases were neatly excised. So its strengths are physical movement, inventive use of small and large coloured lights and slangy interpersonal confrontations where language is used as a brutal cudgel rather an intellectual rapier. 

Which brings me to Long Cloud Theatre. It has the stated intentions of educating young people by way of performance work, all of which develops leadership and confidence alongside myriad other worthy attributes. The Scruffy Bunny theatre is great for achieving all that. The space here is little more than a starkly empty one replete with concrete floor and paper blackout curtains. In it tonight are some random low platforms, donated props from wherever and hooks to hang lights and speakers.  There is no audience space as such – not ‘standing room only’ as much as ‘only standing room’ (old buggers with ageing legs please note).

Indeed, the line between what is cast and what is audience is deliberately blurred; especially when the lights are low as they often are in this powerful little offering. 

The production is a glorious mass of acting (and observing) bodies that contributes to the overall feel of the basic themes. The accent is on the corporate mass creating stark but beautiful moments. From the get-go I am hugely impressed by the way that the Faust/Devil confrontation that is the spine of the work is kicked off by the bulk of the cast swooping around the entire performance space seemingly carrying Dr Faustus (Ethan Kalini Morse) along in its multiple shimmying arms. The man they carry is niftily realised in whiteface, wearing a spangled yellow jacket bedecked with Christmas tree lighting. How’s that for laying your cards on the table? 

The good Doctor’s antangonist is Jack Arbuckle’s female Mephisto, an imposing creation of mighty dreadlocks and booming voice. The clunky plot (if one there be) is declaimed from time to time by Mephisto laying down the house rules of Hell and damnation (“a life must be taken”).  But it comes with less and less impetus as Faustus is eventually seen to be a cocky winner with the Devil Mephisto a comparative loser.

We are living, you see, in a perverse Steinian world where they sure do things differently. Faustus sells his soul for the dubious right to invent electric light (and the possibly more valuable right to turn it off at critical moments) on pain of ending up in Hell. Strangely, he puts little value on the lighting and at one point indicates Hell is actually where he would prefer to be. The Devil thus loses her preconceived status as Prince of Darkness and becomes a morally bereft Javert.

Between times we get to see what the/an underworld looks like (I think). LCYT renders it per medium of the entire cast jigging clumsily about it the dark to upbeat mindless music while carrying suitcases and wearing miners’ lamps. The crowd really loves it; no matter what it signifies.

The (possibly but maybe not) women characters are regaled in stunning coloured dresses or wrapped in tubular orange/pink lights as the action surges backwards and forwards around them. Taking up a fixed viewing position in the untenanted shadows on the edge of the room I can only see the backs of the ensemble moving in waves; almost as if a play is being performed at crowded party where they are doing King Lear in the kitchen with the final act in the rumpus room after the refreshments have been served in the lounge. At one level it is sublime semi-audible nonsense; at another it is what perspectives-changing theatre is all about.  

Here I must give special mention to the ultra-clear and endearing performance of Angus Long as ‘Man from over the seas’ who makes intermittent appearances in city clobber, carrying an ingenious self-illuminating umbrella and rendering adoring overtures to the woman in tubular light (doubling perhaps as the Statue of Liberty). His talk is redolent of Stein’s wilfully overcooked prose. He is huge favourites with the surrounding audience. It makes both little and much sense. It even occurs to me that Stein was about 60 years ahead of her time (a concept she abhorred, incidentally) in foreshadowing what we now know as rap.  

At Scruffy Bunny there are no rows of seats in which an audience sits in tyrannical judgment on the performers. In fact the audience is a kinetic tool for advancing the objects of the play. Through their standing virtually on the actors’ shoulders, tension levels rise and fall. Immediate and close appreciation is shown for dynamic events arising from the interplay of voices, movement and light in the more formal cast.  

A great deal of thought has gone into constructing this potent mix of ideas and experiences. Top marks to director Brett Adam, who also designed the crucial set and lighting. Making less more and introducing such creative moments into an ultra-Spartan environment like this calls for oodles of due praise. I am very glad to give it. 

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