Dr Faustus Devised Introduction Evaluation

Sophie, Saxona and I had the task of devising a introduction entertainment segment before the Dr Faustus show. This however wasn't too challenging as we were well familiar with the happening and types of entertainment around the time Dr Faustus would have originally been performed.

Sophie and Saxona took it upon themselves to create a structure of the act, with a small introduction lead by myself followed by a comedic element; telling the story of Dr Faustus through costume changes and dialogue led by myself.

The opening was classic, a welcome ladies and gentlemen, but with a twist. You see we wanted to open the act as if it was the 1600s. Sophie and Saxona were dressed as men so we could address and educate the audience a little whilst also entertaining them that women were forbidden to perform/be on stage in that era. They also wrote the script to include the mentions of bear baiting a common opening act before, during and/or afterwards a performance in classical times.

My segment included quick changes and devising small scenes to portray the story that the girls were reading. An example is 'There once was a man named Dr Faustus' and I would proceed to dress in a jacket and stumble onto stage as a Dr Faustus were I said 'Dr Faustus', introducing the audience into the happenings of the next few minutes, I was going to act out the story! A few quick changes later I had to portray the 7 deadly sins:

1. Lust
2. Gluttony
3. Greed
4. Sloth
5. Wrath
6. Envy
7. Pride

I did this by visually and vocally presenting these sings as a situation, for example Gluttony I ate a cake, Wrath I became angry that an audience member wouldn't give me his coat.

I wanted this to mainly be improvised as it would add to the comedic aspects of the act, although I did have a brief idea of movement and dialogue beforehand as a guideline to stick by.

Eventually ending with a character from the Dr Faustus cast running onto the stage and shouting at us to get off.

Overall our intentions of the act was more successful than we hoped, we managed to obtain many a laughter and we were all convinced that the audience learnt something or another from what we were trying to say or at the very least understood the brief story of Dr Faustus.


A few alternative ideas I suggested which would have been used but due to lack of time and money we were not able to implicate it into the final performance.


We wanted to add music into the piece, a cheerful tune to introduce the comedic aspects of the performance, although we didn't acquire the time to search for free music to use and set up for the final performance.


Using a small musical song section to add to the comedic aspects was also thought about but we were unable to search or learn a song in the time we were left with.


This musical aspects would have been suitable for the performance to add to the overall atmosphere and helping engage the audience into the piece as well as forming an enigmatic start.


With more money we would have liked to add more over the top props and costumes, such as more realistic clothing or food in our case also which would have been effective in the piece looking more professional.


Another professional feature we thought about was adding a sketch at the end of the performance, we then decided against this due to time.