310 words, 2 minutes read time.
What would give in exchange for your Soul? That’s the bluegrass song from the Hillybilly Thomists that plays before and after this short pop opera begins. For Faustine, the last twenty pages of her PhD dissertation on Ibsen will cost her her soul.
Faustine’s not one of the cool kids, she’s been raised by her mother, whom she resents bitterly, especially her regular nagging phone calls. She’s lonely and – despite her protestations to the contrary – she’s lazy. She leaves it too late to complete her work and cries out in despair. Help comes, not from God, but from Satan. She gets an A grade, the opportunity to deliver her dissertation to a conference and a publishing deal with Princeton University.
Things spiral out of control; she has sex with a senior academic, Richard Jones. She turns to drugs.
“I’m done with the losing team. So what if I sold my soul, when you feel you’re on top?” Satan demands another soul. She murders her room mate Emma, putting bleach in wine and making it look like suicide.
The co-writers, Sarah Norcross and Lydia Brinkmann, fight at the start to play Faustine. I don’t know which one prevailed at the showing I saw, but she brought a perfect mixture of pathos, comedy, and horror to this production. The songs were witty and well-scripted, worthy of Cole Porter having a dark turn. The actor carries off the transition back and forward between Faustine and Satan by facial expression and clever lighting.
The words of the third song, ‘How long have I wanted everything to come easy?’ Conjure thoughts on the current controversy over many students using AI to do their work for them. Perhaps it’s a stretch to say that such cheating is akin to a pact with the devil, but it is potential snare for the unwary.
Reviewed by David Kerr
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