Gaslight Theatre: Doctor Faustus
Turpin Theatre, Enid
January 31, 2026
Doctor Faustus is a play that I was only vaguely familiar with, despite my liberal arts degree and the work’s position in the classical canon. But I knew that it was important™. So when my friend told me about a community theatre in Enid that was staging Christopher Marlowe’s 16th-century play in a black box, I decided a three-hour roundtrip was in store for my weekend.
I went in without researching the play at all, but based on what little I knew, I assumed I was in for a serious, dark drama. On paper, I’d argue it’s exactly that. Doctor Faustus is a cautionary tale about a rather arrogant scholar who is bored with the knowledge of the world, so he sells his soul to the devil to practice magic and obtain knowledge of the divine, with the help of the demon Mephistophilis. Doctor Faustus indulges in each of the seven deadly sins, plays pranks on the pope, and at the end of the day, is unable to pray for his own salvation, which leads to his ultimate damnation.
Reading that summary, you’re probably where I was Saturday at 7:29 p.m., expecting a heavy Elizabethan tragedy. But under the creative direction of Alex Johnson, the production was more like “magic show meets modern horror movie”—and my god, it worked.