The last time Christopher Marlowe's version of the
Doctor Faustus story was seen in London, the Swanamaker
cast a female lead to take the journey through knowledge to damnation, but the text remained the same one written by and for a man. For Headlong's production, which opens its tour at the Lyric Hammersmith, a new playwright takes a crack at the old story, retelling it to ask what would make a woman sell her soul in Chris Bush's
Faustus: That Damned Woman. Revenge turns out to be the answer, at least as the initial spur, when in 1666 London Johanna Faustus (Jodie McNee) is obsessed with finding out the truth about her mother, who was hanged as a witch. The charge was that she signed her name in Lucifer's book of souls, and Faustus is determined to find out if this was true, even if she has to summon the devil himself to ask him. Lucifer (Barnaby Power) agrees to let her read his book, but only if she signs her own name first and damns herself.
