as the opening curtain is signalled, 'faust' finds himself on a stage, a performance about to begin. ripping off his costume, he breaks through the stage backdrop into a vault where an alchemist's laboratory is revealed; with the aid of a book of spells, he brings to life a clay child which grows horrifyingly into his own image before he smashes it. warned by a marionette angel not to experiment further but encouraged by a demon to do as he pleases, he is sent by a wooden messenger to a café meeting with the two street-map men, identified as 'cornelius' and 'valdes', who give him a briefcase of magical devices. returning to the vault, he uses these to summon mephisto, offering lucifer his soul in return for 24 years of self-indulgence.