Striding Lion’s The Great and Terrible Faustus guides the audience through a devilish fun house of sorts, offering seven different paths with seven different characters, each of whom gets a different glimpse of Faustus as the doctor tries to resist Lucifer’s temptations. Every character represents a different deadly sin; during my journey I followed the velvet-suit-clad Lust (Erik Strebig).
While the dancing is impressive, perhaps even more so are the silent acting and eerie singing; the music all comes from the stage of the main theater, where different groups are led to sit and watch as their leaders sing standards like “Dream a Little Dream” and “Fever.” The songs echo in every crevice of the theater, adding to the performance’s haunted air.
