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The Alchemist – RSC

The Alchemist

By Ben Jonson

The Alchemist programmejpg

Directed by Polly Findlay
Designed by Helen Goddard
Prologue, script revision by Stephen Jeffreys

Royal Shakespeare Company
Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

Friday 27th May 2016, 19.15

Will Bliss – neighbour, officer
John Cummins – Ananias, a deacon
Rith Everett – neighbour
Gabriel Fleary – neighbour / officer
Theo Fraser Steele – neighbour
Nately Jones – neighbour / officer
Richard Leeming – Abel Drugger, a tobacconist
Mark Lockyer- Subtle, the “alchemist”
Tom McCall- Kastril, brother of Dame Pliant
Joshua McCord – Dapper, a lawyer’s clerk
Siobhan McSweeney – Dol Common
Hywel Morgan – Lovewit
Ken Nwosu – Face (Jeremy), Lovewit’s housekeeper
Ian Redford – Sir Epicure Mammon, a knight
Rosa Robson – Dame Pliant, young widow
Tim Samuels – Sir Pertinax Surly, a gamester
Timothy Speyer – Tribulation Wholesome, a Dutch pastor
Ealeanor Wyld – neighbour

 

The Alchemist is one of Michael Billington’s The 101 Greatest Plays, in a book I often refer to. A friend said it was the RSC play he most wanted to see this season. Another said it was one of her all-time favourite plays. I hadn’t seen it on stage before, and I never thought it impressive on reading it, because far too much of it is contemporary Jacobean stuff, needing heavy annotation. It is aways heavily cut in production, and Stephen Jeffreys’ intro says it is cut by 20% or 4000 words. Mr Jeffreys wrote the prologue and modernised some text. At the Globe he would be credited as dramarturg, and have his name next to the director. Here he’s 13th in the list of creatives.

This is a preview, and all credit to the RSC, a low-price preview at that, and they just do a couple of days, not a West End TV star three weeks.

The opening overture by the band was impressively and hilariously eclectic with a huge mix of styles. After that, the music mainly didn’t fit at all. The actual production was “Sam Wanamaker Playhouse” in style.  Jacobean costume, mainly fixed lighting, some flying of Doll, but they can do that at the Wanamaker too. When you look at the online photos, they all look like the Wanamaker- dark background, Jacobean costume. Fixed minimal set. No extra stuff brought on. No great SFX except for a firework fuse and impressive explosion near the end. Lots of smoke pumped around, too much and  uneccesarily, I thought. It was extremely “straight.” No concept, except perhaps that for the curtain calls, Face undressed to reveal a Ramones T-shirt and then everyone came on in contemporary clothes. The other jarring piece of costume was that Face appeared to be wearing a flying helmet and goggles at times. The Anabaptists looked like monks rather than the comic puritans suggested by the name Pastor Tribulation Wholesome. Surely the puritans Jonson was lampooning were dressed in sober black (though maybe it was to to give Ananias comic belt twirling possibilities). Anyway, to me they looked wrong. Puritans were the Kings Men’s biggest enemy.

This play dates from 1610, and next door in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre,  Cymbeline dates from 1609  but was probably playing in 1610, and certainly was in 1611. So two contemporary pieces from the Kings Men. We also know that Ben Jonson believed in the classical unities of time and place, and was highly critical of the complex time and spatial shifts in the late Shakespeare quartet (Pericles, Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest) which were all done at the Wanamaker Playhouse this winter. There was a sense of competition. In 1610, the Kings Men took The Alchemist to the provinces, and garnered high praise in Oxford, in an indoor setting which was used as the basis for set design for The Globe’s authentic practices venture into Twelfth Night and Richard III with Mark Rylance.

Marchette Chute (Ben Jonson of Westminster) says:

A comedy like Jonson’s, with its single set and use of only one level was well suited to an indoor hall like The Blackfriars and … Jonson had never made any use if the architectural freedom that was available at The Globe. He always seemed to work mentally for an indoor stage, although a successful play like “The Alchemist” would have been presented in both theatres.

Both Coleridge and Dryden heaped the highest praise on The Alchemist. Dryden is responsible for some silly perceived “rules” on English grammar, so I’m not rating his opinion too highly.

The Alchemist

Subtle (Mark Lockyer) reads Dame Pliant’s hand (Rosa Robson)

The plot? Basically, Lovewit has gone away leaving his house in charge of Jeremy, his servant. Jeremy becomes “Captain Face” and elists the help of two lowlife conmen, Subtle and Doll Common. They then hoodwink a series of “gulls” in various ways, though centrally by pretending they have The Philosopher’s Stone, which can transmute base metals into gold. The gulls begin with Dapper, a clerk (Welsh here), who wants to meet the Queen of The Fairies, who would swap fairy gold for coin of the realm. Absurd? In 1610 a pair of conmen were arraigned for selling such meetings, and four years earlier a gentleman of Dorset paid a con artist £6 for such a meeting.

Then Abel Drugger is a tobacconist seeking some sort of 16th century version of feng shui advice about his shop. Here it’s seen as astrology, but we’d call it feng shui. Then Sir Epicure Mammon seeks the Philosopher’s Stone, but is in a ‘sensuous drugged trance in which he can see a whore like Doll and consider her worthy to be hung with diamonds‘ (Marchette Chute again). Two Anabaptists from Holland want to increase the money they’ve collected from the orphans. They hate any sign of worldly show.

The Alchemist

Sir Epicure Mammon Ian Redford)  & Doll Common (Siobhan MacSweeney)

Kastril wants a rich husband for his widowed sister, Dame Pliant. All are to be cheated by the trio of crooks, with Face pretending to be a captain, and Subtle a mystic scientist /doctor / divinator. There’s a guy called Surly who distrusts them and dresses up as a comic Spanish count. (Give them the funny Spanish count, Spike, I hear Ted Bovis say in Hi Di Hi.)

I don’t know what happened here, but neither of us cracked a smile from beginning to end. It just wasn’t funny. There didn’t seem to be a comic touch in the direction, nor comic timing in the acting and very, very little of the text amused us at all. It may be contrast with two far better Globe productions (Taming Of The Shrew, Midsummer Night’s Dream), and a fabulous Kenneth Branagh production of Romeo & Juliet last weekend. Maybe they raised the standard too high. I’m hinting unsubtly that I’m on Shakespeare’s side in the 1610 debate on Jonson’s “real people in real time” versus Will’s “away with the faeries.” Or if you like broad satire like Monty Python plus contemporary realism in Eastenders (Jonson) versus Game of Thrones (Shakespeare).

the-alchemist

Face (Ken Nwosu) and Dame Pliant (Rosa Robson)

In many ways this production, unlike the RSC’s recent Volpone, was too unadorned with concept (and I have complained about extraneous, imposed concept in the past). I felt it needed some central idea, some definite approach rather than just doing the play. The play is also unbalanced, with five or six very good actors from the Swan season appearing briefly as “neighbours” to call out to Goodwit when he returns, and to do so from various points in the theatre. Then two or three just stand around as officers. A terrible waste of under-employed acting talent … especially as it could be scripted as just one neighbour if economy is considered. If you’ve got them, you should try and use them earlier … not that the play has room for anyone else with its fixed single set.

The Penguin introduction (1966) to Ben Jonson’s Three Comedies says:

“The density of the dialogue, the contemporanity of the comedy to a Jacobean audience, makes The Alchemist more difficult than Volpone for readers and playgoers today.”

I’ve seen a lot of Jacobean / Elizabethan plays on stage for the first time. I’ve always read about them thoroughly in advance, and had often read the plays in my student days. I found The Alchemist hard to follow. My companion, who insists that the RSC synopsis should always suffice if the production is any good, said she couldn’t work it out at all, and added that mumbled lines from the rogues did not help.

The Alchemist

Kastril (Tom McCall) – a strong performance

One event in the play that articles note is Dapper. Early on he is gagged and locked in a privy. Then everyone forgets all about him, He eventually chews through his gag and gets out right near the end. Good Farce 101 stuff. But what did they do here? Led him off along one of the thrust walkways. He didn’t seem about to be locked up (I missed the words if so). When he emerged along the walkway an hour later, you had totally forgotten who he was and why he had a gag round his head. Didn’t work in the slightest. (Sigh) if you have someone locked in a privy, you see the privy on stage, you hear odd knocks and noises. The “lockers in” do a double take, or hurriedly talk over the noises. The door rattles at times. It’s a classic farce running gag. Not here. Thrown away. Clueless farce direction. Sorry.

The production was hard-going and often dull. There are bits that need ironing out … Subtle especially, but also Face and Doll are projecting at a quieter level than the rest of the cast. Sir Epicure and Kastril are playing at full volume as if in the open air Globe in a howling storm, and the contrast is uncomfortable.You can adjust to either volume level, but they don’t sit together well. It’s also a style contrast with Face, Subtle and Doll adopting a realistic and quiet delivery, and the gulls played at pantomime size. Kastril gives a great energetic performance as the angry brother, played full on and arms waving like windmills. Either style might work, but they don’t blend, or maybe just didn’t tonight. Perhaps it’s designed to show the three crooks are cleverer. I thought our mild boredom was unfamiliarity on our part (Renaissance plays tend to get clearer when you’ve seen one a few times) but going out I heard someone say “Well, it’s the least funny version I’ve seen.” Another in the loo queue in the interval said “that was hard work.”

I thought my critical edge had gone last weekend, rating two plays in a row at five stars, but no, they were that much better than this. You shouldn’t rate a preview, but this was two stars for us. Post-preview they might smooth it out and work on comic timing and gain one, but in the end it’s a pedestrian version. BTW, the Evening Standard calls it “pure gold” and gives 4 stars. As do The Guardian and Telegraph. I’ll note others as they appear.

I love seeing different versions of plays, but the overall effect of this one means I won’t bother with The Alchemist again, unless it’s directed by someone I really admire. One of the 101 Greatest Plays? Not in this version. Cymbeline, 50 yards away next door, is a far better candidate.

Or … as in football results …

Shakespeare … 4 / Jonson … 2

SEE ALSO

Many of the cast also appear this 2016 season in:

Don Quixote
Doctor Faustus

POLLY FINDLAY ON THIS BLOG

The Merchant of Venice, RSC
Arden of Faversham, RSC

IAN REDFORD

Arden of Faversham, RSC
A Mad World My Masters, RSC

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      • As You Like It – Globe 2015
      • As You Like It – Globe 2018
      • As You Like It – National 2015
      • As You Like It – RSC 2019
      • As You Like It RSC 2013
      • Awful Auntie
      • Bakkhai
      • Balletboyz: The Talent
      • Barber Shop Chronicles
      • Bartholomew Fair
      • Beauty & The Beast (Ballet Theatre UK)
      • Before The Party
      • Birthday
      • Bitter Wheat
      • Black Comedy
      • Blithe Spirit
      • Blithe Spirit – Bath 2019
      • Boudica
      • Bring Up The Bodies
      • Broken
      • Candida
      • Cardenio
      • Carmen Disruption
      • Caroline or Change
      • Comedy of Errors – Globe
      • Comedy of Errors NT 2012
      • Comedy of Errors RSC ’12
      • Communicating Doors
      • Comus
      • Copenhagen
      • Coriolanus – NT Live
      • Coriolanus – RSC
      • Curiosity Shop
      • Cymbeline – RSC
      • Cymbeline – Wanamaker
      • Dancing At Lughnasa
      • Death Of A Salesman
      • Deathtrap
      • Dedication
      • Dido, Queen of Carthage
      • Dinner With Saddam
      • Doctor Faustus
      • Don Carlos
      • Don Juan in Soho
      • Don Quixote
      • Dunsinane
      • Echo’s End
      • Educating Rita
      • Edward II
      • Electro Kif
      • Eyam
      • Fallen Angels
      • Fantastic Mr Fox
      • Far
      • Farinelli and The King
      • Fences
      • First Light
      • Flare Path
      • Follies
      • For Services Rendered
      • Forests
      • Fortune’s Fool
      • Forty Years On
      • Fracked! Or Please Don’t Use The F-Word.
      • Frankenstein – NT Encore
      • French Without Tears
      • Funny Girl
      • Future Conditional
      • George’s Marvellous Medicine
      • Girl From The North Country
      • God of Carnage
      • Gypsy
      • Hairspray, The Musical
      • Half A Sixpence
      • Hamilton
      • Hamlet – Cumberbatch
      • Hamlet – Globe 2014
      • Hamlet – Maxine Peake
      • Hamlet – NT 2010
      • Hamlet – RSC 2016
      • Hamlet RSC 2013
      • Hamlet- Almeida / BBC 2107
      • Hamlet- Young Vic 2011
      • Hangmen
      • Harlequinade / All On Her Own
      • Harlequinade / All On Her Own – review
      • Hay Fever
      • Hecuba
      • Hedda Gabler
      • Hedda Tesman
      • Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 RSC
      • Henry V – 2018
      • Henry V – Jude Law
      • Henry V – RSC 2015
      • Henry VI: Three plays
      • Hobson’s Choice
      • Hogarth’s Progress
      • Home, I’m Darling
      • Hysteria
      • Imogen (Cymbeline) – Globe 2016
      • Importance of Being Earnest 2010
      • Importance of Being Earnest – Suchet, 2015
      • Importance of Being Earnest – Watermill
      • Importance of Being Earnest 2014
      • Importance of Being Earnest- 2018
      • Inala
      • Institute
      • Into The Hoods – Remixed
      • Ivanov
      • Jeeves and Wooster
      • Jerusalem
      • Jerusalem – 2018
      • Julius Caesar – Globe 2014
      • Julius Caesar – RSC 2012
      • Julius Caesar – RSC 2017
      • Ka
      • King Charles III
      • King John – Globe 2015
      • King John – Rose, 2016
      • King John – RSC 2019
      • King Lear Frank Langella
      • King Lear – Antony Sher, RSC 2016
      • King Lear – Barrie Rutter
      • King Lear – David Haig
      • King Lear – Globe 2017
      • King Lear – McKellen 2017
      • King Lear – Russell-Beale
      • Kiss Me Kate
      • Kunene and The King
      • La Bête
      • Lady Windermere’s Fan
      • Life of Galileo
      • Little Shop of Horrors
      • Long Day’s Journey Into Night
      • Love
      • Love For Love
      • Love’s Labour’s Lost
      • Love’s Labour’s Lost – 2018
      • Love’s Labour’s Lost- 2016
      • Love’s Labour’s Won
      • Love’s Sacrifice
      • Love, Love, Love
      • Macbeth – Globe 2016
      • Macbeth – McAvoy 2013
      • Macbeth – National Theatre 2018
      • Macbeth – Tara Arts
      • Macbeth – Young Vic
      • Macbeth RSC 2018
      • Macbeth, RSC 2011
      • Macbeth, Watermill 2019
      • Macbeth- Chichester 2019
      • Macbeth- Wanamaker 2018
      • Mack & Mabel
      • Malory Towers
      • Man and Superman
      • Mary Poppins
      • Me and My Girl
      • Measure for Measure – Globe 2015
      • Measure for Measure – Young Vic
      • Measure for Measure RSC 2012
      • Measure For Measure- RSC 2019
      • Medea NT live
      • Miss Julie / Black Comedy
      • Miss Littlewood
      • Mojo
      • Monsieur Popular
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Globe 2014
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Globe 2017
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Old Vic 2013
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Rose 2018
      • Much Ado About Nothing – RSC 2014
      • Much Ado About Nothing- Northern Broadsides
      • Much Ado About Nothing- RSC 2016
      • Murder, Margaret and Me
      • My Brilliant Friend (play)
      • My Night With Reg
      • Neighbourhood Watch
      • Nell Gwynn
      • Nice Fish
      • No Man’s Land
      • Noises Off
      • Obsession
      • Oklahoma! – Chichester
      • Once
      • One Man, Two Guvnors
      • Othello – Globe 2018
      • Othello – RSC 2015
      • Othello NT 2013
      • Othello- ETT 2018
      • Othello- Wanamaker 2017
      • Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour
      • People
      • People Like Us
      • Pericles
      • Peter & The Starcatcher
      • Peter and Alice
      • Peter Gynt
      • Peter Pan (pantomime)
      • Peter Pan Goes Wrong
      • Photograph 51
      • Pitcairn
      • Plastic
      • Platonov
      • Playing Cards 1: Spades
      • Plenty
      • POSH
      • Present Laughter – Chichester 2018
      • Present Laughter – Old Vic 2019
      • Present Laughter- Bath 2003
      • Present Laughter- Bath 2016
      • Pressure
      • Privates On Parade
      • Punishment Without Revenge
      • Punk Rock
      • Pygmalion
      • Quatermaine’s Terms
      • Queen Anne
      • Quiz – James Graham
      • Racing Demon
      • Ralegh: The Treason Trial
      • Relative Values
      • Richard II – Globe
      • Richard II – RSC
      • Richard III – Almeida
      • Richard III – Apollo 2012
      • Richard III – Freeman
      • Richard III – RSC 2012
      • Richard III – Spacey, 2011
      • Robin Hood (panto)
      • Romantics Anonymous
      • Romeo & Juliet – Globe 2017
      • Romeo & Juliet – RSC 2018
      • Romeo & Juliet 2014 – Box Clever
      • Romeo & Juliet, Headlong 2012
      • Romeo & Juliet- Branagh 2016
      • Romeo and Juliet- Globe 2015
      • Romeo and Juliet: Tobacco Factory
      • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
      • Ross
      • Rules for Living
      • Salomé – RSC
      • School nativities
      • Secondary Cause of Death
      • Separate Tables
      • Shakespeare in Love
      • She Stoops To Conquer
      • Skylight
      • Slava’s Snowshow
      • Snow in Midsummer
      • Spring Awakening
      • Stepping Out
      • Strife
      • Sweet Bird of Youth
      • Switzerland
      • Tamburlaine
      • Tangomotion
      • Tartuffe- RSC
      • The Alchemist – RSC
      • The Argument
      • The Beauty Queen of Leenane
      • The Beaux Stratagem
      • The Birthday Party
      • The Book of Mormon
      • The Broken Heart
      • The Canterbury Tales
      • The Captive Queen
      • The Caretaker
      • The Chalk Garden
      • The Changeling
      • The City Madam
      • The Constant Wife
      • The Country
      • The Country Girls
      • The Country Wife
      • The Cripple of Inishmaan
      • The Crucible
      • The Deep Blue Sea – 2019
      • The Dresser
      • The Duchess of Malfi – 2012
      • The Duchess of Malfi – 2014
      • The Duchess of Malfi – RSC 2108
      • The Entertainer
      • The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich
      • The Ferryman (Acts 2 & 3)
      • The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk
      • The Four Seasons: A Reimagining
      • The Game of Love and Chance
      • The Ghost Train
      • The Height of The Storm
      • The Homecoming
      • The Hot House
      • The Hypochondriac
      • The Hypocrite
      • The Jew of Malta
      • The Knight of The Burning Pestle
      • The Ladykillers
      • The Lie
      • The Lieutenant of Inishmore- 2018
      • The Lieutenant of Inishmore-2001
      • The Lock In
      • The Lock In Christmas Carol
      • The Magistrate – NT Live
      • The Magna Carta Plays
      • The Man In The White Suit
      • The Merchant of Venice – Almeida
      • The Merchant of Venice – Globe
      • The Merchant of Venice – RSC
      • The Merry Wives – Northern Broadsides
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor – Globe 2019
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor – RSC 2012
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor- RSC 2018
      • The Misanthrope ETT
      • The Miser
      • The Nightingales
      • The Norman Conquests
        • Living Together
        • Round & Round The Garden
        • Table Manners
      • The Odyssey
      • The Painkiller (2016)
      • The Play That Goes Wrong
      • The Price
      • The Provoked Wife
      • The Recruiting Officer
      • The Rehearsal
      • The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
      • The Rivals
      • The Roaring Girl
      • The Rover
      • The Ruling Class
      • The School for Scandal
      • The Seagull
      • The Seagull- Chichester
      • The Seven Year Itch
      • The Shoemaker’s Holiday
      • The Silver Tassie
      • The Spire
      • The Storm
      • The Syndicate
      • The Taming of The Shrew – RSC 2012
      • The Taming of The Shrew – RSC 2019
      • The Taming of The Shrew- Globe 2016
      • The Tempest RSC 2012
      • The Tempest RSC 2016
      • The Tempest- Wanamaker
      • The Truth
      • The Two Noble Kinsmen- 2018
      • The Two Noble Kinsmen- RSC
      • The Wars of The Roses
        • Edward IV
        • Henry VI
        • Richard III
      • The Watsons
      • The Way of The World
      • The Weir
      • The Whale
      • The White Devil – Globe
      • The White Devil – RSC
      • The Winter’s Tale – Branagh
      • The Winter’s Tale – Cheek by Jowl
      • The Winter’s Tale – Globe 2018
      • The Winter’s Tale – RSC 2013
      • The Winter’s Tale- Wanamaker
      • The Witch of Edmonton
      • There and Back Again – An Odyssey
      • Thérèse Raquin
      • This Happy Breed
      • This Is My Family
      • Timon of Athens
      • Timon of Athens – RSC
      • Titus Andronicus – RSC 2017
      • Titus Andronicus- Globe 2014
      • Totem
      • Travels With My Aunt (musical)
      • Travesties
      • Tristan and Yseult 2017
      • Troilus & Cressida RSC 2018
      • True West
      • Twelfth Night – Apollo 2012
      • Twelfth Night – Globe 2017
      • Twelfth Night – NT 2017
      • Twelfth Night – RSC 2017
      • Twelfth Night – Watermill
      • Twelfth Night – Young Vic
      • Twelfth Night RSC 2012
      • Twelfth Night- ETT 2014
      • Two Gentlemen of Verona – 2016
      • Two Gentlemen of Verona – RSC
      • Two Gentlemen of Verona- 2013
      • Uncle Vanya
      • Venice Preserved
      • Vice Versa
      • Volpone
      • Vulcan 7
      • Watership Down
      • Way Upstream
      • What The Butler Saw
      • While The Sun Shines
      • Wolf Hall
      • Women On The Verge of A Nervous Breakdown
      • wonder.land
      • Worst Wedding Ever
      • Woyzeck
      • Yerma (2017)
      • Young Chekhov Season
      • Young Marx
    • video
      • A Weekend Away, A Week By The Sea
        • Sections: Weekend Away / By the Sea
      • Dennis Cook: A history
      • Drama, dialogue and video
      • Teaching with video: techniques
      • Video: non-authentic
      • Video: on location
      • Video: Peter Viney Interview
      • Video: What happened?

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