Faustus

DAVID MAMET

FAUSTUS

David Mamet was born in Chicago in 1947. He studied at Goddard College in Vermont and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York. He has taught at Goddard College, the Yale School of Drama, and New York University, and lectures at the Atlantic Theater Company, of which he is a founding member. He is the author of the plays
The Cryptogram, Oleanna, Speed-the-Plow, Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo
, and
Sexual Perversity in Chicago
. He has also written screenplays for such films as
House of Games
and the Oscar-nominated
The Verdict
, as well as
The Spanish Prisoner, The Winslow Boy, Spartan
, and
Wag the Dog
. His plays have won the Pulitzer Prize and the Obie Award.

ALSO BY DAVID MAMET

PLAYS

Boston Marriage
The Old Neighborhood
The Cryptogram
Oleanna
Speed-the-Plow
Bobby Gould in Hell
The Woods
The Shawl
and
Prairie du Chien
Reunion
and
Dark Pony
and
The Sanctity of Marriage
The Poet and the Rent
Lakeboat
Goldberg Street
Glengarry Glen Ross
The Frog Prince
The Water Engine
and
Mr. Happiness
Edmond
American Buffalo
A Life in the Theater
Sexual Perversity in Chicago
and
The Duck Variations

FICTION

The Village
The Old Religion
Wilson

NONFICTION

Jafsie and John Henry
True and False
The Cabin
On Directing Film
Some Freaks
Make-Believe Town
Writing in Restaurants
Three Uses of the Knife
South of the Northeast Kingdom
Five Cities of Refuge
(with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner)

SCREENPLAYS

Oleanna
Glengarry Glen Ross
We’re No Angels
Things Change
(with Shel Silverstein)
Hoffa
The Untouchables
The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Verdict
House of Games
Homicide
Wag the Dog
The Edge
The Spanish Prisoner
The Winslow Boy
State and Main
Heist
Spartan

This play is dedicated
to Colin Stinton

Faustus
received its world premiere on February 28, 2004, at The Magic Theatre, San Francisco. Chris Smith, Artistic Director; David Gluck, Managing Director.

FAUSTUS
HIS WIFE
HIS FRIEND
A MAGUS FAUSTUS’S SON

ACT ONE
Faustus’s home, on the occasion of a party for his son

ACT TWO
Variously, Earth, Heaven, and Hell

At rise, we see the portico of
FAUSTUS
’
s home. Large double doors open onto a room hung with tinsel and streamers, a party scene gotten up as a fantasy
.

FAUSTUS
’
s
WIFE
is involved in decoration
.
FAUSTUS
enters and looks around. Pause. He holds a sheet of paper in his hand
.

FAUSTUS:
It seems a very dream.

WIFE:
It is a dream. Delightful, as it is temporary.

FAUSTUS:
Temporary.

WIFE:
How otherwise?

FAUSTUS:
To what do you refer?

WIFE:
Have I mistook you?

FAUSTUS:
What is it you indict of transience?

WIFE:
Of transience—the décor.

FAUSTUS:
The décor, of course.

WIFE:
Which, you remark, will serve but the day’s brief turn …

FAUSTUS:
… of course …

WIFE:
… divert the child, and then …

FAUSTUS:
How is the boy?

WIFE:
He would be thrilled to find you at this unaccustomed hour. What has released you … ?

FAUSTUS:
… and where is Fabian … ?

WIFE:
I believe he marshals the festivities. I beg your pardon, are you anxious for his news?

FAUSTUS:
What news?

WIFE:
Today is Friday …

FAUSTUS:
Yes …

WIFE:
He generally brings the gazette. Are you cold, Faustus? The day is cold.

FAUSTUS:
The chill livens the mind. Life grows in the cold. Does it not?

WIFE:
It grows however you should bid.

FAUSTUS:
My bidding cannot alter its growth.

WIFE:
But it shall affect how I perceive it.

FAUSTUS:
I believe I have completed my work. (
Of the paper in his hand
)

WIFE:
What… ?

FAUSTUS:
I believe I have completed it.

WIFE:
Your most sanguine of expectations could not put the end sooner than years.

FAUSTUS:
So indeed I thought.

WIFE:
Then how … ?

FAUSTUS:
It rests in the rendition of the false. Which, like a bridal veil, could not be lifted by force—solely through devotion. (
He hands her the paper
.)

WIFE:
I cannot follow it. The argument’s beyond me.

FAUSTUS:
Then take me on faith, and pardon me.

WIFE:
… for what conceivable sin?

FAUSTUS:
… to leach attention from another’s feast. How is the child?

WIFE:
He loves you. You repeat yourself.

FAUSTUS:
Then you may claim a forfeit.

WIFE:
Your soul.

FAUSTUS:
Have I not given it?

WIFE:
How can you live without your soul?

FAUSTUS:
It flourishes without me. While within it was bound by my vice, and vanity each step for its supposed cultivation only brought it blight. Since consecrated, I observe it to grow strong. Its reproofs are of the most gentle, and its instructions delight.

WIFE:
What has it taught you?

FAUSTUS:
To yield, to wait, to hope, to believe. In fine, it has taught gratitude.

WIFE:
Smile, then, on your faults, as those do who love you. For all must wax and wane.

FAUSTUS:
Indeed?

WIFE:
Must I quote you the Moon?

FAUSTUS:
Oh, simple and good soul, are you not my salvation?

WIFE:
As you are mine.

FAUSTUS:
Who counted himself honored merely to be your support.

WIFE:
Do we not profit, nay, thrive, nay, delight in your wisdom?

FAUSTUS:
It is derivative.

WIFE:
Must not all wisdom be?

FAUSTUS:
Must it?

WIFE:
As it derives from God. Our excellence is not in Creation, which is the Lord’s, but in our humble wonderment.

FAUSTUS:
Which you indict me of?

WIFE:
I do.

FAUSTUS:
You honor me.

WIFE:
I must see to the boy.

FAUSTUS:
Stay.

WIFE:
He is somewhat overborne by the excitement.

FAUSTUS:
Stay. This one moment. Anchor me.

WIFE:
This may suffice. (
Hands him a sheet of paper
)

FAUSTUS:
What is it?

WIFE:
His gift to you.

FAUSTUS:
’Tis his day for gifts.

WIFE:
Does he not long to pace you in all things? Who are his god? You fret, he frets; you work, he mimics you, you prepare a gift, so must he … and his mind, formed like yours, revolves, ever on the one planetary theme.

FAUSTUS:
Whose name is?

WIFE:
He pines for you.

FAUSTUS:
… you give him to understand … my work …

WIFE:
Which names his enemy, but cannot diminish his longing.

FAUSTUS:
My sweet son.

WIFE:
We have all fretted.

FAUSTUS:
Fretted for me?

WIFE:
With
you, say, rather—
with
you—in your seclusion.

FAUSTUS:
Yes, I know.

WIFE:
Now know the extent. His poem to you. (
She gestures at her sheet of paper
.)

FAUSTUS:
(
Reads
)

WIFE:
…’tis but the figure.

FAUSTUS:
(
Reads
)

(
Pause
) This is the Son’s love. Full-grown man cannot compass it. But in nostalgia for the infant
state … that hopeless love of the omnipotent. Sad, savage longing.

WIFE:
Sad?

FAUSTUS:
Is it not?

WIFE:
It turns joyful. Read to the end …

FAUSTUS:
I recollect, now, for the one half-instant—that brief, child mind, when all good dwelt in self-consuming worship. How might a man deserve it?

WIFE:
One may but treasure it. Come to him.

FAUSTUS:
In the one moment. My hand to my heart—

WIFE:
Then I must go.

FAUSTUS:
Again, is he unwell?

WIFE:
But overtaxed, anxious for the celebration.

FAUSTUS:
Go then, be thou my emissary. Relate my delight at his composition, and offer th’ appropriate salutations, as fitting one scribe to his brother upon this festive, so on … Bid him allow me to compose myself, after my labor, and I come to him complete.

WIFE:
Complete, and abandoned to the festivities.

FAUSTUS:
Like a newly convinced addict.

WIFE:
And our profound congratulations on the completion of your work. I lack the words … might you take them for said?

FAUSTUS:
And put so prettily.

WIFE:
Where?

FAUSTUS:
In your visage—see to the child.

(
She exits
.
FAUSTUS
looks at the paper
.)

FAUSTUS:
“One for the heart, one for the head, one for the lad who tarries abed …” Poor child. His work now complete, he, like his father, is cursed to begin again. For, as much as the work partakes of divine afflautus. To that same extreme one must again tempt, cajole, entreat, and importune the gods. The artist weathercock now ratifying north, now northwest, and we serially nod delight at each fresh revelation. Hush, he is working; hush, he is done. See: our poor petted Sisyphus, watch his labor now devolve from him. Both fame and failure apportioning but self-revulsion. The mind is a mill which can incessant turn, ’til its mere operation focus the stress inward and the stones grind themselves to dust.

(
Enter the
FRIEND
)

FRIEND:
This is a curious greeting for an anniversary.

FAUSTUS:
Fabian.

FRIEND:
How is the boy?

FAUSTUS:
I was to go to him—I have forgotten. Lord, hear my plea. My sin is great, pardon my self-absorption.

FRIEND:
So may we indict any man.

FAUSTUS:
And myself the chief malefactor.

FRIEND:
Why?

FAUSTUS:
The greater the gift the greater the shame in malfeasance, e’en here I sin in pride, how can you stomach me?

FRIEND:
Doth not contrition mitigate your pride?

FAUSTUS:
It is a counterfeit. Like the rich, I trust to the soft brush of rhetoric, to rasp from me the stench of crime.

FRIEND:
Shall nothing cleanse you?

FAUSTUS:
Mine is the Sin of the Confessional. Of one whose depth of contrition, howe’er impersonated, nay, howe’er felt, may never plumb the depth of his duplicity. I am a fraud. Whose prayer is not thanks, but anxiety: let me be played off, e’er I am discovered.

FRIEND:
Not today, not today, good Master, which is a Feast day, when we are bid to drink, to rest, to celebrate.

FAUSTUS:
What of philosophy?

FRIEND:
And let philosophy succor itself, in whate’er it may consist.

FAUSTUS:
While we?

FRIEND:
Grope blindly, as your Honor knows, in hope of that good morsel, heady liquor, or compliant wench.

FAUSTUS:
Do we then, like the beasts, live solely for repletion?

FRIEND:
On the which note might I dare importune you for refreshment?

FAUSTUS:
Do I construe you to mean, you find philosophy less than a noble task?

FRIEND:
I’ve seen, these many years, that you enjoy when, at close of day, you have matched this word to that emotion.

FAUSTUS:
You find it an unworthy pastime?

FRIEND:
Who am I to balk another of his freak? I knew a villain, said he lived to count the stars. Each darkness found him, with his pen and ledger, out of the house, happy as a grig.

FAUSTUS:
… it pleased him.

FRIEND:
He called it his life’s work.

FAUSTUS:
To number the stars.

FRIEND:
So he said. Until that day he wandered out of bounds into a neighbor’s copse, and was killed by the gamekeeper.

FAUSTUS:
The gamekeeper mistook the fellow’s errand.

FRIEND:
Oh no, he reckoned it aright.

FAUSTUS:
How so?

FRIEND:
Each night, my friend took up his ledger and trod out, it was in fact to lie with the gamekeeper’s wife.

FAUSTUS:
Aha.

FRIEND:
And
daughter.

FAUSTUS:
I see your man was a prodigy.

FRIEND:
Sir, you don’t know the half of it.

FAUSTUS:
Which distinguishes me from the gamekeeper’s wife.

FRIEND:
…
and
daughter …

FAUSTUS:
… as you said.

FRIEND:
…
and
son, for all we know.

FAUSTUS:
… so much is hidden from us … (
Pause
) You balk me of my prerogative melancholy.

FRIEND:
You have enrolled me as your foil. Permit me my turn. Again, might you supply a drink, to a traveler, come from the cold unfeeling world?

FAUSTUS:
Ah, have you brought the journal?

FRIEND:
The journal, no.

FAUSTUS:
You have not?

FRIEND:
But is it Friday?

FAUSTUS:
Returned, with its noted regularity.

FRIEND:
I do not have the journal, no.

FAUSTUS:
Oh, my friend, you are damned to Hell. Heaven must shun you, as you use its gifts so ill.

FRIEND:
What gift?

FAUSTUS:
Mendacity Give me the gazette.