The Alchemist

            The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson, is a comedy about three con artists who make one too many cons and end up having to leave town.  The theme of this play is the pursuit of fame and fortune by people who will try any foolish way to win it.  The plot of this story involves the Alchemist, Subtle, and the housekeeper, Face, in a plan to swindle as much money as they can from as many people as possible before the Master of the House returns.  The performance I attended at the Exit Theater in San Francisco had the look and feel of a familiar jazz-bar/comedy club.  There is a small stage, café bar, and about a dozen rows of padded stools that pull out from under long, thin, bar-like tables; the back of the stage is a brick wall, probably from the adjacent building.  I enjoyed a hot cider while laughing throughout this very entertaining production.

            Subtle and Face worked well together as convincing con men whom claimed to be able to deliver whatever it was the customers wanted.  The dapper, a naïve clerk, wanted to be some sort of famous person (from what I understood).  Subtle and Face dressed as royalty to trick the dapper out of his small fortune by prophesizing a prosperous future for him.  The two con men also dressed this way to help the drugger, a tobacco-man, set up a new shop that they promised would make him very wealthy.  Subtle used astrology to con the less-than-intelligent drugger out of his money.  The housekeeper tricked a knight, Epicure Mammon, into seeing the alchemist by pretending to be a god.  The knight was thoroughly convinced that the alchemist, dressed in poor man’s clothes, was going to find him a philosopher’s stone, which was known to turn metal into gold.  Epicure’s friend was skeptical, and his warnings were ignored.  Ananias and Tribulation, a deacon and his pastor, sought some sort of magic medicine from the alchemist.  It was promised to bring health to the people in their congregation and cure sickness.  Kastril and Dame Pliant, an angry boy and his sister, were referred to the alchemist, dressed for them as royalty, by the drugger, and they were promised fame, love, and fortune.

Part one was a bit confusing in the beginning.  The three main characters were arguing about who was going to get what portion of the scams they pulled off.  The dialogue was fast and difficult to understand at times, but the body language and facial expressions of the characters kept me up to speed with the predictable plot twists.  I had a hard time associating the name of characters with the actors, but I understood who most of the characters were, with some exceptions.  Several actors played two or three different characters in the performance, some of whom would change on stage while other actors continued.  Toward the end of the second half, those actors would sometimes only change their voice while wearing another character’s costume, which made it hard to identify them due to the confusion of roles.  The actress, Floriana Alessandria, played three different characters.  This confused me the most toward the very end, but I was laughing too much for this to really bother me. 

            There were several notable plot twists, but a few scenes had me somewhat confused.  I misunderstood two characters, Surly and Kastril.  In one scene, Surly looked inside the trunk on stage to find evidence that Subtle and Face were frauds.  He spoke rather fast in what seemed to me like Shakespearean dialogue (what do I know?).  I could tell he had uncovered the sham and was thinking of a way to get the two caught.  Epicure ignored Surly’s warning, then Surly ran off.  He returned in a later scene as a mystery man, and Dame Pliant fell in love with him, just as the alchemist had promised her.  But the two of them return later to confront Subtle about this fraud.  This was the confusing part.  Surly took off the mystery man mask and revealed himself in front of Subtle and Kastril. Kastril then threatened him off.  I didn’t understand what that scene was about.  I figure either Subtle convinced Kastril that Surly was lying, or Surly went to tell Epicure about the scheme (honestly, I forget).  Nevertheless, Epicure came back to the house, along with the others, to confront Subtle and Face about what Surly had told them.  This was when Floriana Alessandria played all three parts of Dapper, Tribulation, and Kastril.  This didn’t take away from the overall comedy of the situation, in fact, the abrupt change in voices added to it. 

            The introduction of Kastril and Dame Pliant was a little confusing.  I was busy taking note and may just have missed it.  The purpose of their characters didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the play, except for Dame falling in love with Surly in disguise.  Even that was confusing because of what I might call “over-rehearsed” lines.  The characters just spoke too fast and had complicated dialogue I couldn’t translate as quickly.  I think I missed some main points because of this.

  There were several things about this play that made it very amusing.  It was clear that Subtle and Face were at odds with each other.  Several times through out the play, Face slyly hinted to Subtle, in the presents of visitors, that he would go against the plan and ruin the con if Subtle wouldn’t agree to his suggestion.  The two of them constantly passed money to each other behind the backs of the other characters that made for a good laugh.

 Another comical ploy of this production was that some actors played characters of the opposite sex.  The costumes were outrageous and the different voices were hilarious.  My favorite actor in this production, Brendan Averett, played Epicure Mammon and Dame Pliant.  He reminded me of Woogy from the movie Something About Marry.  His facial expressions and speeches to his friend had me on the floor.  His character, Epicure Mammon, was the most animated and comical, I thought.  He was a knight that paid loads of cash to Subtle and Face for the promise of wealth and sex.  His character was a classic representation of what my mother would call “guy scum.”   The con men’s college, Doll Common, participated in the con and suckered the knight into giving her money and jewelry.  His other character, Dame Pliant, was a shy girl in search of love while protected by her angry brother, Kastril.  The change of character was hilarious; definitely my favorite part of the play.

The climax of the story happened with the return of Lovewit, the Master of the House.  Face, dressed in his proper housekeeper’s clothing, brushed off the victims of the alchemist in front of Lovewit, who had no idea of what these people were at his house for.  Again, the ending was a bit confusing with the character’s changing voices, but there were still plenty of laughs when each of them found out they had been cheated.

This was a very entertaining production, although it may not have been as good if the setting wasn’t so appealing.  The actors spoke too fast, and taking notes did take away from the experience.  I also had to see this play alone, but my girlfriend and I plan to see another play at this theater later this month.  I would definitely like to see other productions at small theaters like this more often.

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