{"id":3661,"date":"2014-08-25T06:07:45","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T10:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3661"},"modified":"2015-01-03T06:09:17","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T11:09:17","slug":"the-alchemist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3661","title":{"rendered":"The Alchemist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"William<\/a>

William Fettes Douglas, “The Alchemist” (photo: wikimedia.org)<\/p><\/div>\n

You might think Ben Jonson doesn\u2019t have anything to say to modern audiences, and that whatever he did have to say, he said 400 years ago. In the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey\u2019s<\/a> production of his \u201csatiric masterwork\u201d The Alchemist<\/em>, the audience finds, as director Bonnie Monte says, \u201cthe one thing that hasn\u2019t changed is human nature.\u201d In a talkback after the show, a director who\u2019d put on this rarely-produced play free outdoors in Manhattan in 2008 said it made an almost painfully apt commentary on 21st century greed in the midst of the economic crisis.<\/p>\n

Every variation on wanting something for nothing is displayed by the Londoners who visit the den of the Alchemist and his confederates. The marks are blinded by their fantasies, their lust for gold and, while they\u2019re at it, the favors of one particularly comely young widow. We laugh out loud at their ridiculous and sybaritic pretensions, mainly because we recognize them.<\/p>\n

For this production, much of the language was updated so modern ears could catch the lightning-fast and witty dialog, and the whole play was cut in about half by eliminating secondary characters and scenes, for modern attention spans (and bladders). It\u2019s still two and a half fast-moving hours. All the acting is excellent, but special mention should be made of the three principal actors Jon Barker (Face), Bruce Cromer (Subtle: the Alchemist), and Aedin Moloney (Dol Common). Brilliant. In Madison through August 31.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You might think Ben Jonson doesn\u2019t have anything to say to modern audiences, and that whatever he did have to say, he said 400 years ago. In the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey\u2019s production of his \u201csatiric masterwork\u201d The Alchemist, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Alchemist","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[104,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-morgue","category-theater"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-X3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3662,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661\/revisions\/3662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}