Faustus: That Damned Woman (NHB Modern Plays) (Nick Hern)

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At this point it is essential to mention the exceptional talent that is Olivia Sweeney who commands the stage from start to finish as Johanna with a dominance that is positively awe-inspiring.

Despite its darkness, it’s very hopeful. It’s about legacy, it’s about living in a fearless way and facing death The opening scene sets the tone for the play amidst Johanna’s mothers hanging for witchcraft. Olivia Sweeney (Johanna) takes the audience on a journey through time whilst conveying a spectrum of emotions in the search for the truth of her mothers death.A permanent theme explored throughout is the seemingly insurmountable range of obstacles women have to overcome to achieve anything in the face of a male-oriented society which leads Johanna to express incredulity when, after her first time jump, she encounters England’s first ever female doctor, so much so Faustus becomes convinced she too must have made the same pact with Lucifer. So, I guess it provokes questions of a woman’s place in society, how we treat women, and today as well, not just through history." Johanna Faustus (Jodie McNee) is the epitome of powerless: a low-born, 17 th-century woman whose apothecary father (Barnaby Power) crushes her ideas (he prefers leeches to potentially life-saving herbs), preaches female docility – the cautionary tale is Johanna’s mother, who was hanged as a witch – and looks for ways to marry her off. Oh, and the bubonic plague is sweeping through London. It’s easy to believe Johanna when she quips that she’s already in Hell. Thus, she strikes a bargain with the Devil (also Power): 144 years of life, during which she will never age and has access to the supernatural powers of Mephistopheles (Danny Lee Wynter, pictured below right with McNee), in exchange for her soul. Caroline Byrne’s production is atmospheric, which aids some of the more meandering sections of the play. Ana Inés Jabares-Pita’s dark, smoky set has skeletal trees arching over and covered with rough canvas, creating a claustrophobic bomb shelter-like structure; after the fire, ash rains down in a desolate cloud, hauntingly lit by Richard Howell, who also contributes spooky shadows. Ian William Galloway’s projections clarify the time jumps, and underline Johanna’s vengeance spree by scratching off the names of her victims, and Giles Thomas’s sound design adds visceral impact. But this is a piece overflowing with ideas that never really coalesce into a satisfying, coherent drama.

This play is also available as an A4 Edition. With spiral binding, a larger print size and additional space for notes, this format is ideal for directors, stage managers, actors and others to use in rehearsal and production. Of course, it is always fascinating to view familiar stories through a different historical lens, and following Lucy Kirkwood's The Welkin that opened at the National just last week, here's another female playwright being given a large London stage to tell a woman's story. The Lyric Hammersmith's artistic director Rachel O'Riordan and executive director Sian Alexander write in a programme note that the theatre has "committed, with Headlong, to commission women writers to create new plays of scale for our Main House."When researching the look and feel Francesca wants to bring to a production, she says she works with visual imagery more than words, and for Faustus she has explored ideas of physical theatre and contemporary dance, along with body art. Based on the play by infamous playwright Christopher Marlowe and adapted by one of the UK’s most in-demand play writers Chris Bush, Storyhouse Chester is the new home for this reimagining of a classic tale, Faustus: The Damned Woman.