While the Cat's Away . . .

THERE ARE NO mistakes in this Alchemist no gimmicks or compromises or implicit apologies for one of the classic warhorses of English comedy. It won't have you rolling in the aisles, though it probably wasn't Jonson's intention to get that sort of response--he wanted to instruct as well as amuse. He placed himself squarely in the center of his society, defending true values against all comers front all directions--Puritan and libertine, meek fool and overbearing lout. He played the down-to-earth Aristotle to Shakespeare's Plato, attacking anyone who deviated from his golden mean. This kind of stance can reduce the energy level of a work of art--how vituperative can you be when you're defending moderation?--but Jonson surmounted this difficulty by resort to strong satirical invective and a life-giving dose of four-letter words.

This production of The Alchemist is one of the few Harvard productions that have grown out of academic work. Mark Mosca, who directed it, took English 125 "Elizabethanand Jacobean Dramatists," and went to the Harvard Dramatic Club with a proposal to do Jonson's masterpiece, Bartholomew Fair, Bartholomew Fair is not nearly as well-known as The Alchemist, and is much more difficult to stage, to the HDC chose the sure-fire-alternative. The HDC has been rewarded with packed houses, but settled for an evening with no surprises for anyone--with a good cast, perceptive direction, and an appreclative but not overwhelmed audience. How can we believe that the HDC will open up the mainstage to student playwrights if it won't even take a chance on what is--by academic standards, at least--the greatest non-Shakespearian comedy in English literature?

The Alchemist is based on the principle that "there's one born every minute." One by one a set of types troupes in to see the quack magician, Subtle, in search of it is they want--money, women, success. Dapper (Stephen Kolzak) is a boring dandy of an accountant who wants to be successful as a gambler; he winds up with a blindfold over his eyes, gingerbread stuffed in his mouth, and a dead mouse in his fist. Drugger (Denis Pelli) is an honest tob acconist who wants his shop to prosper; Pelli stammers and shuffles cringingly enough, but it's a little disturbing to see Jonson make fun of someone simply because he's not too bright and wants to prosper. Sir Epicure Mammon (Spito Veloudos) has always been the character in the play I most identify with (I was typecast to play him in a high-school production), Veloudos is drunk with his own words, his ecstatic visions of gluttony. All his appetites--gustatory and sexual--are to be fulfilled by the Philosopher's Stone, but even these pleasure, poignantly, pull after a while. All he can think of to do with the phoenix once captured is eat it. He is a Jacobean Bernie Cornfeld, spreading the gospel of "Be rich!" and he receives the perfect come-uppance--he can have his money back only if he'll admit in public what he was trying to do.

Pertinax Surly (John Carito) sees through the alchemist but doesn't manage to outsmart him. Carito is particularly good when dressed up as a Spanish hidalgo pretending not to understand Subtle when he tells him, "You are a scurvy whoreson dog," to which he replied. "Gracias, gracias." Tribulation (Walter Matherly) and Ananias (Sam Guckenheimer) are two whacked-out sectaries from the most extreme of the Protestant lunatic frings; Kastrll (Lee Silverman) is suitably boorish but sometimes so much so that you can't understand what he's saying. Dame Pliant (Andrea Stein) is a dumb blonde who turns out to be the prize for the rogue who out-cozens everyone, Lovewit (Will Englund), who returns from a vacation to appropriate everything Subtle and his partner Face (Charles Weinstein) have stolen. He is indulgently intelligent, the consummate man of the world.

Jonson's comedy, though, hardly ends in reconclliation--Subtle and his fancy-woman Dol Common are last seen vowing revenge against Face. Dol (Sarah Jane Lithgow) is particularly appealing in two scenes--at the very beginning, when she forces Face and Subtle to stop quarelling, and when she plays the role of fine ladies--like the potty sister of a baron or the Queen of Fairyland. Subtle (Philip Kilbourne) is craggy and lanky with high cheekbones and his facial mugging supplies an ironic commentary over and above the script. Face is short, dark, and particularly good when affecting the part of a shuffling menial.

The Alchemist runs smoothly, on an elegant set whose only drawback is that it's such a good suggestion of serious occult mystery that you almost forget how much of a con game The Alchemist is. Mosca's direction is quick, sure, and creative, though the first act only smolders. The Alchemist isn't the kind of cosmically reconciling play that Shakespeare's best comedies are, but it offers its own kind of delights. Most of them come through in this production.