A Faustian Diaspora

As always with the International Festival, both Faust and Diaspora were well-attended, highly professional and a splendid example of the sort of work that is rarely staged in Scotland. Faust, in particular, had a scope and scale that makes it difficult to imagine any organisation other then the festival being able to afford the staging. And both of them grappled with difficult ideas, showcasing theatre as a medium for intellectual entertainment. Yet, neither work was entirely satisfying. Faust, for all its glamour, stagecraft and serious intentions, failed to nail the essential battle between good and evil, relying heavily on the imagery of out-dated cosmology and disguising a discomfort with the story's theological relevance behind a spectacular sequence in hell. Faust himself, thoroughly ambiguous and presented at one point as a paedophile, is reduced to a cypher, and the devil, inevitably, gets the best lines.

Diaspora was far weaker: apart from a sequence featuring the Scottish artist and her family, it made broad claims about the complexity of multi-culturalism that were not reflected in the extravagance of its multi-media. The use of Chinese music and various different immigrants to represent the detail of modern culture miscegenation rarely opened up new avenues for debate. When The Skinny led its festival coverage with Diaspora, it offered to cast a critical eye over the concept of Homecoming, and a more stringent focus on the difficulties of identity and a shift away from the haggis and shortbread shorthand for Scottish nationhood. In the all-too-short scenes dealing with Rabiya Choudhry, an artist from an Islamic family based in Edinburgh, it was moving and gentle, as she discussed the cultural influences on her work and her own relationship to her faith and country. But far too much of the production was taken up by strident monologues from around the globe. They repeatedly pointed out the contradictions of belonging to one nationality and living in another country, and were far too sentimental in their conclusions about integration. The spectacle of Diaspora was impressive: huge screens, a large orchestra, actors striding in silhouette, Choudhry's drawing emerging across the curtain as she etched in significant details. The technology lent grandeur but destroyed intimacy, and fused the diverse voices into a monolithic whole, ironically undermining the theme of difference that gave the production a faltering energy. While the spectacle was immense, and provocative but undeveloped ideas floated around, the episodic structure left Diaspora as more of a series of flickering moments of brilliance than a cohesive performance: another irony.

Faust had exactly the same problem. In the final moments, when the angles arrived to save Faust's soul, Puracette managed to convince him that good can triumph over evil, as the devil is distracted by the beauty of the angels. Up to this point, the problems of surtitles, especially in the promenade scenes, distracted from the moral point of the myth. While is fun to see wild scenes of debauchery, fork-lift trucks driven by pigs and banks of video screens displaying hard-core porn, it is no substitute for a clear retelling of Faust's bargain and adventures. The original play got lost in the swirl, and the only scenes that survived were the initial medical work of the doctor, his seduction of an innocent and his final death. The spectacle was remarkable, without ever shedding light on what is, for most moderns, a worn-out debate of abstruse theology. Eschewing the temptation to use God and Satan as metaphors, the atmosphere was medieval and carnival-esque, a fascinating blend of contemporary theatre and morality play. The suspicion remains that this is a great story that needed considerable flash to be attractive and in the display, the relevance disappeared. Certainly, both shows entertained and brought something original to the stage. The polish, as always, was clear. The professionalism was absolute. They provided plenty of material for thought, without ever revealing a soulfulness.