Faust up to Date

About the show

The following plot summary was printed in The Theatre in December 1888: It might have been thought that Goethe's legend was too hackneyed a subject to afford scope for a new version; but Messrs. Sims and Pettitt have contrived to introduce into it fresh elements of fun, without so far departing from the original story as to make it unrecognisable. We have Old Faust longing for love and youth, and the appearance of Mephistopheles, who summons a vision of Marguerite, engaged as a fascinating barmaid at the Italian Exhibition at Nuremberg. Old Faust signs the necessary bond and is transformed into a gay and handsome gallant, who is accepted by Marguerite. Her brother, Valentine, to favour the addresses of Siebel, makes his sister a ward in Chancery, and the married pair dread the punishment of the Lord Chancellor, from which punishment they eventually escape at the Olympic Gardens, Nuremberg, by ascending in a balloon. Mephistopheles is outwitted by the reappearance of Old Faust, with the grievance that the gentleman in red has not fulfilled his portion of the contract, but allowed another to enjoy himself in his place. Valentine, though he has been carried off as killed, comes to life again, his valuable existence having been saved by Faust's sword being turned aside by Valentine's Waterbury watch, the touching gift of his sister!