Faust: The Tragedy Part One

“I Have, alas! Philosophy/ Medicine, Jurisprudence too,/ And to my cost Theology,/ With ardent labour, studied through./ And here I stand, with all my lore,/ Poor fool, no wiser than before.” Thus begins the famous monologue in Goethe’s tragedy, almost casually. However, ego is a central theme in Faust: it is all about this monstrous ‘I’: self-indulgent, egocentric, a hybrid in utter despair. Faust has come to the end of the road, but suicide is no solution. Memories of his childhood and an extreme subjectivism prevent him from taking his own life. So he’s to go on living, but how? Faust turns his back on all of society’s points of reference. Possessions, religion, science and education – they no longer have any meaning for him. Neither do earthly pleasures and joie de vivre, leading Faust to lament: »No dog would endure such a curst existence!« How would the story have continued had the Devil not meddled in Henry Faust’s life? The staging of Part I marked the beginning of Michael Thalheimer’s Faust project at the Deutsches Theater. The second part of the drama followed a year later, debuting in October 2005.

Both productions of Faust have been accompanied by lectures and discussions. Participants included Michael Jaeger, Assistant Professor at Berlin’s Free University (author of Fausts Kolonie, published by Königshausen & Neumann), Professor Hans-Jürgen Schings of the FU Berlin, Professor Ulrich Gaier, University of Konstanz (Fausts Modernität and Kommentar zu Goethes Faust published by Reclam) and Professor Jochen Schmidt of the University of Freiburg (Goethes Faust, published by C.H.Beck.) A major conference on Faust took place on February 11th & 12th 2006 , featuring lectures from Anne Bohnenkamp, Nicholas Boyle, Friedrich Dieckmann, Gundula Ehrhardt, Ulrich Gaier, Michael Jaeger, Petra Maisak, Manfred Osten, Ernst Osterkamp and Hans-Jürgen Schings. The conference and Thalheimer’s productions are documented in the publication Verweile doch – Goethes Faust heute, available in book shops and at the Deutsches Theater.