The Alchemist

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Alchemist Sophia Richardson The Alchemist Presented by Red Bull Theater at New World Stages in New York, NY. 7 November–19 December 2021. Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher. Directed by Jesse Berger. Scene design by Alexis Distler. Costume design by Tilly Grimes. Lighting design by Cha See. Original music and sound design by Greg Pliska. Wig and makeup design by Tommy Turzman. Production stage manager Rebecca McBee. With Manoel Felciano (Jeremy/Face), Reg Rogers (Subtle), Jennifer Sánchez (Dol Common), Nathan Christopher (Abel Drugger), Stephen DeRosa (Ananais), Carson Elrod (Dapper), Teresa Avia Lim (Dame Pliant), Jacob Ming-Trent (Sir Epicure Mammon), Louis Mustillo (Surly), and Allen Tedder (Kastril). Red Bull Theater’s production of The Alchemist was already in rehearsal in early winter 2020, but production was paused as the pandemic brought the world to a grinding halt. The irony of the situation was not lost on the company: Ben Jonson’s 1610 comedy takes a similar plague-induced shutdown as its premise. In Jonson’s London, the well-to-do have fled the city to escape the rising case count of bubonic plague, leaving the less fortunate to fend for themselves with the trickery and con-artistry that drive the play. Red Bull Theater took full advantage of the perverse timeliness of its non-opening, with a delayed limited run in fall 2021 full of references to the ongoing pandemic. Among the contemporary updates in Jeffrey Hatcher’s quite freely adapted script, topical references to the current pandemic garnered the biggest laughs. When the lights first went down on the house, a deep voice rang out to caution us against duplicitous Londoners, many of whom “wear masks, just as you do.” Glancing at the many ushers in the aisles holding “mask up” signs in the dimming lights, the audience laughed appreciatively. Later, in a play on the ubiquitous discourse about “essential workers” in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, naïve tobacconist Abel Drugger (Nathan Christopher) got a big laugh when he explained that, while most shops had been closed for the plague, his business “was deemed essential.” The throughlines between old and new continued as a fruitful source of humor throughout the play. Gleeful anachronism not only garnered a handful of solid plague jokes but furnished other successes as well. The production played to a hometown crowd by reimagining Mammon’s cynical sidekick Surly (Louis Mustillo) as a no-bullshit Brooklynite with a strong accent and an even stronger disdain for credulous gulls. Old weapons [End Page 292] met new aesthetics as swordplay devolved into slow-motion combat, with the absurdly lethargic action movie-like moment milked to the last drop for grotesque expressions and unlikely stunts. Dol Common (Jennifer Sánchez) showed up for her role as the “Fairy Queen” with laced-up bodice and lute in hand, quickly improvising an operatic introduction in full neo-Renaissance mode, but she turned up a little later strutting like a Bond girl extraordinaire in thigh-high golden boots as she belted out the iconic strains of Goldfinger. Similarly, Sir Epicure Mammon (Jacob Ming-Trent) presented a triumph of cross-century prancing, at once capturing the twee performativity of the Jacobean court and the sultry strut of contemporary drag. Click for larger view View full resolution Subtle (Reg Rogers), Dol Common (Jennifer Sánchez), Face (Manoel Felciano), and Dapper (Carson Elrod) in The Alchemist, dir. Jesse Berger. Red Bull Theater, 2021. Photo by Carol Rosegg, courtesy of Red Bull Theater. Other instances of this cross-temporal sensibility carried over into the set and costume design. Alexis Distler’s set masterfully transported the Red Bull audience to a Tudor interior, complete with period-appropriate windows, dark wooden paneling, and decorative portraits, but the actors periodically jolted us out of the historical illusion by invoking the larger theatrical surroundings, joking about “unpleasant looking” people in the front row, or the more distant view from the mezzanine. The costuming was likewise evocative of Elizabethan garb, but more as a gesture than as a bid for historical accuracy. The cast mostly appeared in the kinds [End Page 293] of undershirts, jerkins, bodices, hose, and hats that code productions as “Renaissance...