Carabas

A production of Faust, I'm going over a written list of the scenery needed for each scene. One scene is described as the Altar of Hell, and I have a mental image of Faust being pinned to a circular stone by two demons; that's the contract signing scene. The next scene is set in a field surrounded by trees, and my perspective changes so I see this as the audience would.

Curtain rises on Marguerite and women of the chorus in the field; shortly afterward Faust enters from the right. In response to what the women had been singing, he sings something satirical about the dangers of love and the unfortunate fools who are caught up in it. This annoys Marguerite, and she turns away and pointedly ignores him. The women of the chorus exit, and Faust realizes how angry Marguerite is, so he jokes around in the hopes of getting back in her good graces, teasing her by singing a humorous song that starts with a verse about roosters and hens. She forgives him easily, and by the time he gets to the chorus she's joined in the song, flirting right back at him. The second verse is about deer and hunters, and she playfully leads him on a chase around the stage. As they exit, laughing, Mephistopheles strolls by in the background, keeping an eye on how things are playing out.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

There are four men, or people who were once men and are now weapons, kept chained up in their sleep. Two 'chains,' really - the collars around their throats, but also something much deeper that's never meant to be removed. I'm removing that second 'chain' from each of them. They wake up as I do so, and their first reaction is to moan about the pain, but gradually they regain a sort of awareness. It's interesting to watch - they're becoming aware of how much of their personality has been stripped away from them, but without actually regaining that personality they lost. Their master arrives then, and I expect them to attack him in revenge - that's the whole reason I freed them - but instead they cower in the corner, just looking at the pair of us.

Memory gap. Next thing I remember, I've gone semi-lucid in order to pursue that master of theirs. He's closed himself off inside a tower where I shouldn't be able to follow, with an irritatingly arrogant attitude about it - he's essentially the god of this place, it won't allow me entrance if it goes against his will. Or at least it's not supposed to. The tower's a sort of futuristic art deco confection, lots of spheres and glowing purple lights, and I'm flying around it, demanding that it create an opening. With my next pass around the tower, I find an entrance has been created, opening onto a single room containing an elevator. It signifies that this place is as willing to depose its 'god' as I am. I take the elevator up to that man's private sanctuary - the elevator doors open to show me a vast pool lined with twisted white trees without leaves, and quite a lot of statues, including some of himself. This guy is unbelievable. There's a mansion at the far end of the pool, and I expect his mental trail to lead me there, but instead it leads me off to the right, to another body of water, and I focus on a light at the end of a pier.