"Doctor Faustus, is a play by Christopher Marlowe. It is based on the German story Faust and is sometimes referred to as 'The Tragic History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus'. The play is about a man who sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge. Doctor Faustus was first published in 1604 which was 11 years after Christopher Marlowe died."
Wikipedia, Doctor Faustus(play) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Faustus_(play) [last accessed 23rd September 2014]
This researched helped me grasp an idea of the background knowledge and lead up to the writing of the play. It also allowed me to gather information that I previously didn't know about Doctor Faustus which helped me understand the underlying meaning of the play. The concept of the man selling his soul to the devil interests me as its a topic involving religion where people have wide aspects of opinions on so portraying this scene I am looking forward too, and already it helps be begin thinking of ideas around the play.
In today's lesson we had to chose a scene from Doctor Faustus and use now-a-day situations within using the scripts to guide the situations to fit in with the style of genre and period in which the play was set. I was put in partnership with Lauren and we decided to chose the topic of anorexia, we believed that Faustus would be the person struggling with the eating disorder and the devil was anorexia trying to get into 'Faustus's' mind, and therefore sell herself to the condition. I found it quite difficult using a now a day situation and have it in the same olden day format of script. However, we found the words even if they weren't literal they still had the same morals and underlying meaning.
We chose to adapt Act 2 Scene 3.
"Within this scene, Dr Faustus curses Mephostophilis for depriving him of heaven's joys, to which the devil reminds Faustus that it was Faustus; "own seeking" that led him to this point. Faustus once again considers repenting, and the two angels vocalise his conflicted thoughts. But Faustus believes his 'heart is hardened' and cannot turn back. He questions Mephostophilis about the movement of the moon and the planets and asks the devil to name the maker of the world.
As in the case of marriage, the devil cannot deny the realm of God, and Faustus is again filled with fear and doubt. The two angels reappear, the good angel advising Faustus to repent, the bad angel threatening to tear Faustus in pieces shall he dare to do so. Faustus cried aloud for Christ to help him, but Lucifer himself appears with Mephostophilis and Beelzebub. They advice Faustus to think not on God, but on the devil. Faustus vows 'never to look to heaven', and the devils reward him with a show of the seven deadly sins. The sign delights Dr. Faustus, to whom Lucifer promises, 'in hell is all manner of delight.' Faustus returns home with Mephostophilis to study his conjuring book."
Penguin, A teachers guide to the Signet Classics Edition of Doctor Faustus (play) http://www.penguin.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/faustus.pdf [Last Accessed 23rd September 2014]
However our second task after selecting which scene we were doing was to cut it down to our own version. Which we did and within doing so we are only having 3 of the seven deadly sins to speak as these 3 sins are sins that relate to people with eating disorders such as anorexia. One of the deadly sins involves a speech within the scene about eating which we thought we would definitely include as it helps the audience understand our adaptation. One of our struggles is how we will show the audience that this isn't about the literal script, how its about eating disorder. We thought the way we would represent this would be through costume and props, and not something that will be clear during rehearsals
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