A Stanley knife is the encapsulating emblem of Maria Aberg’s modern-dress, theatre-of-cruelty revival of Christopher Marlowe’s Elizabethan classic. Faustus uses it to shed the blood with which he writes his pact with the devil, and later to stab the Pope when His Holiness annoys him; at the end of his 24 years of limitless power, he is not carried off to hell by a posse of demons but dispatched with that same retractable, triangular handyman’s blade.

To get through the play in 110 minutes non-stop, a fair bit has been excised, including all the comic subplots. (This is, let’s be honest, no loss whatsoever.) Other material has been inserted, principally musical and/or movement sequences. Orlando Gough’s score is, in his own words,  “sleazy, brutal and frightening”, in keeping with Aberg’s directorial conception, and includes black mass elements whose composition shows due research and deliberation. Vocals are performed by a supporting ensemble who serve as demons, friars, student drinking buddies and the Holy Roman Emperor’s stormtroopers (well, quite).

The lead roles of Faustus and his dedicated personal devil Mephistophilis are alternated by Oliver Ryan and Sandy Grierson, decided by chance: they enter together, each lights a match and the owner of the first to go out plays Faustus. On press night this was Ryan, who is partly hampered by his effortful, Celtic strain of Received Pronunciation, and more by his choice of a staccato delivery, as if constantly vexed. He never seems to luxuriate in Faustus’ powers, not that the overall interpretation seems to leave much room for it. Yet Grierson’s Mephistophilis, with his Bill Paterson burr, finds space to be generally relaxed, even chillingly leisurely as Faustus’ time draws ever nearer.

Aberg and her company, in trying to reinvent magic and devilry for a 21st-century audience, have lit on a kind of infernal cabaret style. This is not to my personal taste – it strikes me as the kind of slightly self-satisfied in-yer-face approach which thinks it’s both edgier and sexier than it actually is – but it is coherent and punchy on its own terms, and a makeover of this kind on such a play is after all a pretty big ask.

Written for the Financial Times.