Word: alchemistic
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...Alchemist. Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that the Alchemist was one of the three greatest plots in the all literature (Tom Jones and Oedipus Rex were the other two.) It's a well-made play, to be sure, but don't expect anything that great. The production is good, with no gimmicks or flourishes...
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...
...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...
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...
...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...