Splendid Mind Maps

Splendid Publications

Splendid scripts, Teacher Packs and other Splendid-based goodies, including the new Dr Faustus script and pack!

Dr Faustus

Doctor Faustus is Christopher Marlowe’s legendary story of a vain scholar's pact with the devil; twenty-four years of unlimited pleasure for the price of one human soul.

But does Faustus really get the best side of the deal? And does a five-hundred year-old cautionary tale have anything to teach the sophisticated human of today?

"...a great show... I was genuinely moved by the end"
John Sentance, Repton School
"An outstanding performance. Powerful and effective (and funny too!)"
Berj Tekerian, Amersham School
"The performance was stunning. The energy and pace was quite incredible."
Susan Frater, Blessed Lord Napier, Banbury

Below: Faustus writes his 'deed of gift' in the diabolical presence of Mephistopheles. Starts off serious, doesn't stay that way...

Woyzeck

Woyzeck is Georg Büchner’s famous unfinished play about the lowly soldier Franz Woyzeck’s descent into murderous madness. Living in poverty, with his woman, Marie, and a child to support, Woyzeck has agreed to become a medical experiment for the regimental Doctor.

The question is, is it his diet of peas that leads him into the forest with a knife, or the rumours of what Marie has been doing with the peacocking Drum Major?

"Fun but challenging... the performance was sensational"
Kym Martin, Cobham Hall

"...has to rank as one of the most colourful and intelligent interpretations of the work since Tom Waits and Robert Wilson go their hands on it."
British Theatre Guide

"...magnificent... vibrant and vivacious theatre"
Three Weeks

Below: Your peculiar hosts entice you with the delights that are to come and introduce the first scene, Scene 18.

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Why we made the DVDs

Splendid Productions is primarily a touring theatre and education company, and we particularly enjoy the unique experience of playing to a real live audience and interacting with them in our workshops.

However, over the last six years’ of productions, we have had an increasing number of clients requesting a record of the productions for students to refer to, and of course a lot of potential audiences we were unable to fit into our tours, and so we found a way to commit some of our work to disc.

About the Productions

These productions of ‘Woyzeck’ and ‘Dr Faustus’ were both designed to travel the country in a small car, set up and taken down in half an hour, often twice a day. For this reason, both productions have a cast of three and the most rudimentary of sets. But luckily, the limitations of your bootspace does not restrict the reach of your imagination!

Our approach to theatre, like many of our favourite practitioners, is that it is created more by the actors and the audience than by the lights and the scenery. Both of these productions are great examples of what committed performers can achieve with the barest of essentials.

About the Adaptations

To Splendid, the script is just the starting point for a devising process that aims to create an entertaining and thought-provoking piece that is relevant to the audience that year, that day. We specialise in reinterpreting classic texts to place the fundamental human questions at the heart of the production.

We use a ‘Brechtian’ structure that breaks the action into episodes, using signs, songs and direct address to engage the audience’s minds as well as their attention. It also allows us to break up the traditional narrative in interesting ways.

In ‘Dr Faustus’, we interleave the scenes from the play with newly devised episodes, each dealing with a different ‘Deadly Sin’, and posing the question ‘what’s your sin?’.

‘Woyzeck’ takes the idea to its logical conclusion by presenting the episodes in a seemingly random order, and even playing the murder scene three times, asking the audience how their judgement changes as the whole story is revealed.

The scripts are both adapted freely from the original text, but the action and intention remains true to the source material. In the case of ‘Dr Faustus’, much of the language has been updated, but many of Marlowe’s lines have been incorporated into the adaptation. Mephistopheles, for example, uses only speeches from the original text.

We limit our plays to a running time of one hour, which makes them focussed and punchy, but this does mean substantial cuts and reinterpretations of scenes. These are by no means faithful presentations of set texts, but we believe they are witty and vibrant examples of living, contemporary theatre. Now trapped forever on DVD...