Seymour and Sharky: Modern-Day Fausts in Little Shop and The Seafarer

If you saw Performance Network’s Little Shop of Horrors and have seen or are planning to see The Seafarer, you may be curious what the two shows could possibly have in common. After all, one is a black comedy about a down-on-his luck Irish man playing the poker game of his life on Christmas Eve, and the other is a musical about a man-eating plant. At face value, they would appear to have nothing to do with one another. Would it surprise you then to learn that both derive from the same origin story?

That’s right, the Faust story, or “Selling my soul to the Devil” is one of the oldest themes in English literature. The first occurrence of such a story appears in the late 16^th-century. Its origins are distinctly German, and probably come from an alchemist in that country of the same name who, legend has it, sold his soul in order to discover a way to turn stones into gold.

The tale hit its peak in popularity during the English Renaissance. At that time, it was published in a booklet in Germany (1589) and soon after hit British stages with a play that immortalize the story, Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604). Here, Doctor Faustus has become a highly renowned scholar, possibly the most brilliant man in the world—yet he is not satisfied. He craves more knowledge, and so, makes a deal with Mephistopheles in order to gain wisdom superior to his colleagues.

The story continues to pop up through out the ages until 1806, when Goethe returns the story to its homeland. Scholars consider this to be the most important Faust work, and it is widely believed to be the best work of German literature to date. It is also notable for making the Devil out of a poodle. Here, Mephistopheles actually bets God that he can cause God’s favorite human, Faust, to stray from a righteous path (reminiscent of the trials of Job in the Bible). Mephistopheles then accepts Faust’s soul in exchange for the love and lust of Gretchen, a beautiful country girl. The second half of the play draws heavily on classical literary allusion to make its point.

Since then, Faust has been turned into everything from operas (most notably The Rake’s Progress by Stravinsky), to country songs (if you’ve never heard “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by The Charlie Daniels band, I highly recommend it). And that brings us back to PNT’s current season.

In Little Shop of Horrors, the hopeful yet somewhat hapless Seymour dreams of a life with Audrey, the object of his affection. Whilst voicing this wish, he pricks his finger on a thorn and poof! The Mephistophelian caricature of Audrey II, a “new breed” of fly-trap plant, stirs to life. The circumstances of The Seafarer, meanwhile, couldn’t be more different. With the gritty back-drop of a slum in Baldoyle, Ireland, Sharky, we’re told, can barely recall the card game he played 25 years earlier that cost him his soul. The plot synopses have little room for over-lap; however, if we dig a little deeper, we can find a rich literary history that bind Seymour and Sharky together in a pact of fate.

So if you enjoyed Little Shop’s quirky take on soul-selling, come and see The Seafarer for a comparison of another modern day Faust. The show runs through July 18^th, with 8:00 PM performances Thursday through Saturday, 2:00 PM matinees on Sundays, and a 3:00 PM matinee on Saturday, July 10^th.

Essay by Talia Ricci, Performance Network Apprentice