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Thoughts about updating plays to a modern audience

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Perhaps this is more commentary than a question, but it is in regards to
the classic play "Doctor Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe and ponders the
necessities of altering the original work to make it relevant to a
modern audience...

Last year I saw the play "Faust" by a local theatre company. The play seems 
to be performed here and there on occasion, just not very often. The play is 
in iambic pentameter and the setting is around England in the 16th century, 
which is when it was written. Because of this, I understand the urge to 
update the play to the interests of a modern audience, but I wonder if 
rewriting a play works as often as people think. 

In the performance I saw, the director took from Christopher Marlowe's 
play "Doctor Faustus" and, supposedly, mixed with Goethe's "Faust" to 
create something new. It certainly was "new", but I'm not sure how I feel 
about it. 

In the original Marlowe version of Faust, Doctor Faustus sells his soul 
to the devil and dreams of changing the course of history with his new 
power. By the end of the play, however, he is reduced to performing 
magical amusements for the king and queen. Marlowe's point was that by 
selling his soul to the devil, Faustus was turning away from God, which 
in turn was the wellspring from which great accomplishments are achieved. 
Thus, Faustus begins the play as a great man of knowledge and by the end he 
is reduced to a kind of jester. 

In the version of Faust by the local theatre company, Faust just rapes 
everybody. I mean that literally. Faust sells his soul to the devil and 
his first act thereafter is find a gambler who is willing to sell his 
daughter in exchange for winnings. Then he stops a wedding to kill the 
groom and rape the bride. After that, he kills a knight who is unimpressed 
with him and has sex with a queen while the king is given loads of gold. In 
between all of this, some characters (I assume they were the Seven Deadly 
Sins) come out and talk about how Faustus is damned for his actions.

This is very different from the Marlowe play. In the Marlowe play, Faustus 
shows off his power in the beginning but becomes more and more of a joke. 
Further, there are intermittent comedic scenes featuring Faustus' manservant 
who find's Faustus' book of magic and plays pranks with it on his friends. 
This meant as a comedic interlude between scenes of Faustus running around 
doing his thing. All of this is to show Faustus failing at his ambitions 
because of his erroneous assumption that gaining power would not change him.

As I mentioned before, I do understand the need to put a modern spin on an 
old story. This is especially true for stories written in an old style from 
so long ago. I feel in this case, however, the director destroyed the nuance 
of the original work and replaced it with something less nuanced and even 
approaching camp. At the end of the play, the song "Sympathy for the Devil" 
by the Rolling Stones came in over the speaker system. I just had to cringe 
and how clichéd that has become. It was just hitting all the obvious notes,
if that makes sense. On the other hand, it did receive a number of 
nominations for the production, so perhaps I'm the one out-of-step with the
audience rather than the director and theatre company.

Can anyone give any thoughts on this?

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Thoughts about updating plays to a modern audience Anson Carmichael <noemailexists@example.com> - 2019-03-03 17:29 +0000
  Re: Thoughts about updating plays to a modern audience bingo jones <bingo@no.com> - 2023-05-12 14:42 +0000

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