Faustus!

Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin until Nov 26 8pm 12/10 faustus.smockalley@ gmail.com

The story is as old and as enduring as they come. A man, hungry for knowledge and pleasure, sells his soul to the devil. From that kernel of simplicity, a wilderness of different Fauststories have sprouted in literature, theatre, opera, dance, musicals, comic books and videogames. You can choose between Goethe's version or Marlowe's, Vaclev Havel's or David Mamet's or, for more refined tastes, a 1970s-set musical version called – you guessed it – Disco Inferno.

Now Roger Gregg, playwright, musician and the creative force behind the admirably loopy radio sci-fi specialists Crazy Dog Audio Theatre Company, adapts Marlowe’s version of the legend as an old-fashioned lascivious stage treatment, with Bryan Burroughs as the damned academic adrift in soliloquies, pentangles, cautioning angels and lingerie-clad demons.

That last aesthetic touch will raise eyebrows over the production’s gendered understanding of temptation, which workshops depict as something between a burlesque cabaret and an Ann Summers’ catalogue. But the real focus of Gregg’s production is music, conveying the story through original songs performed live by a cast of player/performers.

Hopefully they’ve all scrutinised the small print of their contracts: every Faustian adapter knows that the Devil has the best tunes.