ACT

Faustus, one of the most learned men of his day in all branches of knowledge, is fatally ambitious, impatient with narrow orthodoxies and wanting to know and achieve more.

Drawn to black magic, he sells his soul to Lucifer for the services of the devil, Mephistopheles, who will give him, for a period of twenty-four years, supernatural power and enlightenment. But his dream of doing good loses out to self-indulgence. Too late, the realisation of the waste of his powers leads to despair. Before Lucifer comes to claim him, he is already a lost soul.

Marlowe’s timeless play dramatizes the waste of a gifted individual’s life – tempted by ambition for power and destroyed by character flaws, and bad decisions.