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| Molly McKasson, Barton Heyman. |
A confused and "inexcusable” (Edith Oliver) piece of
patchwork dramaturgy that pasted scraps of various writers’ treatments of the
Faust legend together into a theatrical mulligan stew of little rhyme or
reason. Plays by Goethe, Marlowe, Mountfort, Heine, Klinger and Valery
were the prime ingredients. “Hyperactive direction” and a “wearisome and
unreflective” production, as Mel Gussow phrased it, were partly responsible for
this “rock bottom” outing.
Gussow observed that “‘Phantasmagoria Historia’ manages to
work in a clown sideshow (a red‐wigged circus clown, a Columbine who resembles
Harpo Marx, and a baggy‐pants old Harlequin), much writhing‐in‐tandem, God in
an echo chamber, flashing lights, and random songs including a guitar ballad
and ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart’ tooted on a toy trumpet.”
Barton Heyman played Mephistopheles and Jack Hollander took
on Faust. Gussow remarked, “Heyman's Mephistopheles is overbearing and fey—of
the raised eyebrow school. Hollander's Faust is smug—like a burgomeister
delivering a barroom harangue.”
John Simon considered the play “the lowest to which theatre
can sink.” Among those going down with the ship on its one performance voyage
were, of all people, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman.