How has The Alchemist remained funny, slick and bang-on social target for four hundred years? Well imaginative productions like this one directed by Polly Findlay certainly help burnish its reputation.
Essentially, however, Ben Jonson’s play will continue to be comic gold, as long as there are greedy, lustful and gullible people in the world. And as each day’s headlines reveal, they are in no danger of extinction.
With astonishing originality amongst modern directors, Findlay places the action where the playwright placed it – in 1610 plague-ridden London. And surprise, surprise it works, aided by a 20% text haircut by Stephen Jeffreys. The removal of many words and concepts that fall dead on 21st century ears speeds the action, and a slightly more radical trim would have been preferable.
The plot, like those of latter-day scam stories Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Hustlers, is best left unwinding from one ingenious variation to the next. But it centres on the con-trick trio of Face a wily servant minding his absent master’s house, Subtle a supreme speaker of 17th century pseudo-science and Dol Common a resourceful prostitute. And their big trick involves a state of the art furnace, and claimed certain knowledge about turning base metals into gold, a discovery everyone knows is a tantalising hair’s breadth away.
Their victims include a gambling-fixated law clerk, a druggist eager for success, an elderly knight seeking wealth and sensual experience, and two Puritans trying to enrich their church via dubious means. Whilst a rich country boy yearns to learn the ways of sophisticated London aggression, and everyone wants to wed his young widowed and equally wealthy sister.
Jonson’s genius is to make his villains masters of instant improvisation and of his victim’s psychology. A demeaning ritual involving the Queen of the Fairies must surely deliver intuitive powers, whilst the explosive collapse of an ‘expensive’ alchemy project is clearly a just punishment for ignored warnings about fornication. But the farce inherent in trying to keep simultaneous and separate scams apart, comes to an inevitable and glorious conclusion.
Ken Nwosu as Face dazzles with effortless guile, Mark Lockyer as Subtle switching from one persona and mood to another is a joy to behold, and as Dol newcomer Siobhan McSweeney impacts massively with earthy gusto and Jacobean street-cred.
Jonson’s best lines go the debauchee knight Sir Epicure Mormon as he fantasises about riches and concubines, and Ian Redford lives his every wish with a palpable savour, Richard Leeming as the tobacconist provides the play’s one touch of innocence, and Tom McCall as the country boy brings fun to his every scene with contorted, choreographed anger.
On the technical side Corin Buckeridge’s music adds humorous comment and designer Helen Goddard provides a versatile space capturing the warm allure of the period’s interior art, but including a skull as a reminder of death and eternal judgement. Earthly judgement for those helping themselves to other people’s money with a flourish is non-existent. Some things don’t change. ★★★★☆ Derek Briggs 16th June 2016
