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Originally performed in 1955, this musical is about “fanatical baseball fan, Joe Boyd, [agrees] to sell his soul to the devil to save his favorite team, the Senators” (“Damn Yankees”). The Mephistopheles figure, named Mr. Applegate in this adaptation, give Joe the opportunity to trade places with a younger baseball player for the Senators named Joe Hardy and make the team win, only for the price that he gets his soul on September 24th at midnight. The date being 24th is a reference the twenty-four years of service Mephistopheles was in under Faustus’s contract. Damn Yankees also utilizes how Marlowe’s Mephistopheles often distracted Faust with smoke and mirrors to turn him away from repentance; in this case, Applegate uses his assistant Lola (the Helen of Troy in this story) to seduce Joe into messing up the game and forgetting about his wife in the process. On the other hand, since it was a musical in the fifties, Joe is persistent and loyal towards his previous wife. Damn Yankees seems to be more like a spoof of Doctor Faustus rather than a straight adaptation. The tone in the musical is much more light-hearted.
Typical everyman (Seymour) gets convinced by otherworldly being to murder for the sake of getting all he desires.
Blood is important in both contracts.
Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s Little Shop of Horrors has a lot in common with Marlowe’s iteration of the Faustian legend. Like John Faustus, our protagonist, the dorky florist Seymour Krelbourn is an everyman sort of figure. He works a job where he is not appreciated by his boss/father figure and all he wants is to leave Skid Row. His opportunity comes to him by happenstance when, after a total eclipse of the sun, a rather “strange and unusual plant” appears next to him (Ashman 22). There is one catch to this particular species: the only thing that the plant (named Audrey II) needs to survive is human blood. Before he resorts to killing to satiate Audrey II’s hunger, Seymour uses his own blood, like how Faustus signs Mephistopheles’ contract using the same method. Both of their blood congeals (or in Seymour’s case, he is almost anemic by the time Audrey II starts demanding more), giving both men an opportunity to stop their deal. They do not though.
The contract the young protagonist Ciel Phantomhive makes with the demon Sebastian is similar, but different to Faustus’ towards Mephistopheles. Ciel’s deal did not have specific a time limit. Sebastian was to act as his butler and do whatever he wished until revenge was enacted towards everyone involved in the murder of his parents. In opposition to the revenge plot, there is a good bit of humor in the scripts. With the show’s supporting cast (other servants of the Phantomhive manor, other demons and grim reapers, and Ciel’s cousin Lizzie), their antics are equivalent to the Robin and Rafe subplot of Marlowe’s play. A running gag throughout the season is when Sebastian explains his powers to his victims or the oblivious house staff by being “simply one hell of a butler” (“Black Butler”). Believe it or not, there was a good bit of wordplay in Marlowe’s A text. One particular pun that sticks out is in scene four between Wagner and the Clown:
WAGNER: Tell me, sirra, hast thou any comings in?
CLOWN: Ay, and goings out too; you may see else.
According to the footnotes on page 1137 of the Norton Anthology, “comings in” is an archaic term for income, but the clown took that phrasing literally, hence the goings out.
This particular commercial is clever in its reference to Doctor Faustus, but the reference is pretty overt as well. Willem Dafoe, an actor known for playing shady characters such as The Green Goblin in the original Spider-Man movies, shows up seemingly out of no where and says verbatim “Make a deal with me, kid” (Mercedes Benz; Super Bowl). The Rolling Stones’ “Symphathy for the Devil” plays throughout the fantasy sequence the unnamed protagonist has about the new car and all of the newfound fame and fortune he will receive. The protagonist, like the titular Doctor Faustus, is allured by the promise of attractive women falling for his every grace because of the car. Unlike the other adaptations that have been covered, the protagonist refuses the Mephistopheles character’s deal once he learns about the terms and conditions, or that he could at least get one for fewer than thirty thousand dollars.
This song has an interesting spin on the Faustian legend. In this case, the Faust character triumphs against the Mephistopheles figure after the deal has been made. The character of Johnny in the song is like if John Faustus had common sense and a traditionally good set of morals. However, Johnny is a little more similar to the play’s tragic protagonist than you might think. Despite being the golden boy, he still has his Renaissance counterpart’s fatal flaw: his hubris. Faustus has his dreams of being better than he is through his black magic, while Johnny’s main phrase throughout the song is how he is “the best that’s ever been” (Charlie Daniels Band). Both characters are rather blasé and not even the least scared about two demons approaching them. Johnny humors him while the first thing Faustus does is calmly ask if Mephistopheles could change his form to that of a friar (Marlowe 1135).
This song seems to be the most accurate adaptation of Marlowe’s play, albeit it is more of a Sparknotes version highlighting the main plot. The first two lyrics of the song come from the first two lines of the play: “Not marching now in fields of Thrasimene Where Mars did mate the Charaginians” (Marlowe 1128). The verses of the song are sung through John Faustus’s perspective highlighting the dichotomy between reveling in and despairing his deal with Mephistopheles. The soul is mentioned three times throughout the duration of the song with two of those times mentioning the “lord of [his] soul” (Sphere). The second to last verse has the singer say that he is not the master of his own soul while the final one says that he is. The narrator has finally accepted that he cannot repent; his soul may belong to the devil, but it was still his decision to continue his black magic doings.
“ Damn Yankees Playbill for the Broadway Revival, Starring Jerry Lewis, Marquis Theatre - March 1995 .” Amazon.com, 2019, images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1ktAsmBGYL.jpg.
Ashman, Howard, et al. Little Shop of Horrors. Musical Theatre International, 1982.
Billington, Michael. “The Appeal of Doctor Faustus.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Mar. 2002, www.theguardian.com/stage/2002/mar/13/theatre.artsfeatures.
“Black Butler Episode 1 Dubbed Transcript.” OTAKU TRANSCRIPTS, 26 Jan. 2015, otakutranscripts.weebly.com/blog/black-butler-episode-1-dubbed-transcript.
Culwell-Block, Logan. “Little Shop of Horrors' Original Off-Broadway Program.” Playbill, 2015, cdn-images.playbill.com/ee_assets/Aiken/ameri/dreams/Little-Shop-of-Horrors-August-82-1.jpg.
Daniels, Charlie. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Million Mile Reflections., Sony Music Entertainment Inc., 1979, track 6. Spotify, https://open.spotify.com/track/6gRACp2CvsIhc7hyw8CecQ
“Damn Yankees.” The Guide to Musical Theatre, 2019, www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_d/damn_yankees.htm.
“The Many Adaptations of Dr Faustus.” Edited by Academy of Performing Arts - Worthing College, The Many Adaptations of Dr Faustus, Worthing College, 22 Mar. 2014, worthingpateam.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-many-adaptations-of-dr-faustus.html.
Marlowe, Christopher. “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, by Stephen Greenblatt, Norton, 2012, pp. 1128–1163.
“Mercedes Benz; Super Bowl.” Youtube, Mercedes Benz, 2013, youtu.be/HuXSKDtHYyY.
“A Picture of the Two Main Characters of Black Butler: Ciel Phantomhive (Left) and Sebastian Michaelis (Right).” IMDB, 2008, m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNDEyNzhmOWEtNTRlYy00NGI3LWJhZTMtZDkzZTFkN2RhMWRlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU3MzA0NjE@._V1_.jpg.
Sphere, Secret. “Dr. Faustus.” A Time Never Come, 2015 ed., Scarlet Records, 2015, track 12. Spotify, https://open.spotify.com/track/4ePbFvYAICgfDreBOWiSTA
Tosobo, Yana. Black Butler, 2008.