FAUST | Romeo Castellucci

More than two hundred years after the first publication of Goethe’s monumental work in 1808, Romeo Castellucci takes on one of the most enduring myths of the West in order to liberate it from its words.

Faust is not simply the man who sold his soul to the Devil for knowledge, power, and a second youth. He is the symbol of the endless human desire to transcend his own limits. For Castellucci, Faust is something even stranger. He is an enigma. “An unknown thing, a comedy, or a clown,” as he himself writes.

The great Italian iconoclast of theater returns to the Onassis Stegi with this new international co-production, with light, darkness, and sound as its protagonists. Around them move a three-member company and a ‘chorus’ of ten performers from the community of each city where the performance is presented. With the materials that run through his entire body of work, the body, the image, the shadow, the revelation of a second world within this one, Castellucci creates a “Faust” made not of what is said, but of what remains unsaid.

Faust is a name that carries all of its history, and now I would like to bring it out of its literary home. This Faust—an unknown thing, a comedy, or a clown—reverses the playing field and might even teach Mephistopheles that for an artist, condemnation and redemption are the same thing. The means I intend to use for the staging are the same as always: shadow, skin, and the second world within this one.

—Romeo Castellucci

Riddle Number One

I do not live in the name, but in the mark
I choose the moment, yet he does not want me
What I seek devours me
What devours me does not nourish me
When I signed, the hand was mine
When I spoke, the voice belonged to another
Since then I walk in the company of what I asked for
And the further I go, the more the ground becomes a thread
My dress warms me not, weighs me not, falls not
Who am I?

Riddle Number Two

I do not create: I corrode
I do not deny the truth: I render it useless
I do not knock: I am already inside
I do not lie: I bend the words
I bring light without heat
I advise roads that descend while rising
I do not ask for the soul: I make it appear a remnant
I smile when you consent
I vanish when you invoke me
Who am I?

Riddle Number Three

I break into a thousand and yet I am one
Whoever tries to tame me is found by me
Whoever tries to ignore me falls into my arms
I am the wind that bends trees for no reason
Whoever seeks me in error finds me in the rule
I am the secret heart of what you call law
I have no form, yet I possess them all
Kings fear me, winds invoke me
Who am I?

—Romeo Castellucci