[Ur]Faust - from and after J.W. von Goethe

Sooner or later it comes knocking at every theatre company's door: Goethe's "Faust". Since 2023, this gripping new take on the classic has been a successful part of the repertoire at the independent theatre Junge Bühne Mainz. Heinrich Faust - a doctor whose relentless drive for knowledge leads him to seek out "what holds the world together at its core" - can no longer bear the gaps he finds in every scientific discipline. He becomes susceptible to the forces of magic and ultimately strikes a deal with the devil, who promises to reveal life's pleasures to him. But when Faust meets the young Margarete - known as Gretchen - the power of love turns out to be an unpredictable risk for both parties to the pact...

Why is this production called "[Ur]Faust"?
Goethe spent nearly his entire literary life working on the legendary Faust material as a stage play. The core of the story appears to be rooted in real events and has been one of the most important sources of inspiration in European literature since the 16th century. Between 1772 and 1775, Goethe wrote his first stage version of "Faust" in Frankfurt am Main - still fairly short and conceived as a classic love tragedy, today known as the "Urfaust". This was followed by the revised and substantially expanded "Faust - The Tragedy, Part One" and the philosophically ambitious continuation "Faust - The Tragedy, Part Two", which Goethe wished to be published only after his death as a kind of final testament to posterity. In this production, Junge Bühne Mainz focuses on Goethe's "Faust I", combining its thematic complexity and much-quoted verse language with the energy and concision of the "Urfaust". Scenes and sequences not yet present in Goethe's original version are woven into the performance.