Volpone and Other Plays Read Online Free Page B

Jacobean audience, makes
The Alchemist
(like
Bartholomew Fair
) more difficult than
Volpone
for readers and playgoers today. While the theme of human greed and gullibility is universal, the types, the references, the vocabularies are Jacobean. The idiom is often obscure, but the dialogue and the pace of the action are fast, and carry the reader with them. The play moves with classical, almost clockwork precision, each act stepping on the heels of the preceding one, and the action is virtually continuous from (according to the Herford-Simpson edition) 9 a.m., when Dapper calls, until 3 p.m., when Lovewit unexpectedly returns home and the coney-catchers are unmasked and dispersed.
The Alchemist
is, in essence, farcical; but its quality lies in the Jonsonian synthesis of two seemingly irreconcilable elements – farce and intellect.
    The structure of
The Alchemist
resembles
Volpone
in that, one by one, the principal dupes are introduced to us as they pay their morning calls. Jonson provides a superb array of types – the upstart clerk, Dapper; the shy little tobacconist, Abel Drugger, whom Garrick delighted to act; the elephantine voluptuary, Sir Epicure Mammon; and the insidious kill-joy Puritans, Ananias and Tribulation Wholesome. Each is governed by self-interest, and each is betrayed into the opportunists’ hands by a dream of wealth. Eventhe card-sharper, Surly, who seems to embody common sense – rather like those reasonable brothers-in-law in Moliere who show up the obsessions of the Miser or the Imaginary Invalid – ends by trying to make a wealthy match with Dame Pliant. For each Jonson creates an appropriate diction and speech-rhythm: Drugger is shy and halting, the Puritans are sanctimonious, and Subtle has a splendid line in alchemical blarney. Sir Epicure’s speeches
sound
almost as seductive, Marlovian, and sumptuous as Volpone’s, but they are transparently silly and self-deluding. He is closer to Sir Politic Would-be than to Tamburlaine.
    The end of
The Alchemist
is more indulgent than that of
Volpone
. Lovewit, the rightful owner, returns suddenly, and is not really surprised at the uses to which his town house has been put. Dol Common and Subtle make their get-away, none the richer for their ingenious cozenings. Captain Face dwindles again to being Jeremy, the butler, and blandly triumphs by helping his master to a rich wife. He remains the complete opportunist. That he dodges retribution is psychologically right, and reminds the audience that con-men, like the poor, are always with us. Like Flatterie at the end of Sir David Lyndsay’s great morality
The Three Estates
, Face goes scot-free; the audience must be wary.
    When Sir Tyrone Guthrie directed
The Alchemist
at London’s Old Vic in 1962, the play was performed in modern dress. In part this was because the desire for wealth still makes people gullible today, so that the theme of the comedy remains universal. Guthrie gave a further reason in his programme-note: ‘… modern dress gives more point to the frequent disguises and impersonations used by the trio of rogues. In Jacobean dress, who would know when Face was a Captain or a House Servant? Whether Subtle was a Divine or a Doctor?’ The point was well taken, and Guthrie’s production was fast and farcical and marvellously entertaining, reminding us, perhaps, that of Jonson’s three best comedies this one shone longest and brightest on the English stage. But because Jonson used contemporary idiom and place-reference so vividly, some obscurity is nowadays unavoidable, and a director may well want to make cuts. This is not a recent problem. David Garrick’s acting version, shortened and with most of the limelight on the Little Tobacconist, had – according to the Jonsonianstage-historian Robert Gale Noyes – ‘one hundred and fifty four cuts, varying from one line to three pages’ 1 – though not all were made because of