MAE603_British Drama-I

The Alchemist: Ben Jonson 345 10.6 The Alchemist (Jonson) Anabaptism Pastor Tribulation Wholesome, the pastor of Amsterdam, and his sidekick, Ananias (named after, as Subtle says, \"the varlet who cozened the apostles\"), a deacon, likely were quite recognizable to Jonson’s audience and public as Anabaptists. The Anabaptists are sometimes called the Brethren in the play (see Act 2, Scene 5). Anabaptists belonged to a religious movement founded by Muentzer (pictured) and known as Wiedertäufer in Germany. Such Christians, in the extreme form that Jonson satirizes, have since disappeared, but their religious tradition lives on. The Amish religion is a possible modern analogue for elements of Anabaptism. Anabaptists, like some other Christian denominations today, believed in adult baptism, and they thus dissented from mainstream Christianity. The principle here was that baptism was for believers who had repented of their sins — while small children and babies were unable to do so. The alternative, paedobaptism, child or infant baptism, relied on the faith of the parents or, at least, the Christian community, to bring the child into the Church. This was no small disagreement — the first president of Harvard University, Henry Dunster, was fired from that position in the mid-1600s because he had refused to baptize his children. This issue of theology and church practice remains contested today. An in-depth understanding of Anabaptist practice is not essential to understand The Alchemist, but it is worth realizing that the Anabaptist movement was a serious, fervent movement in Protestantism, driven by equality and asceticism, perhaps a more extreme form of other similar movements. John of Leyden, a contemporary Anabaptist, declared that \"all things were to be in common, there was to be no private property and nobody was to do any more work, but simply trust in God.\" What Jonson satirizes in the Anabaptist characters, above the overzealousness of Ananias (already a satire: Ananias in the New Testament held back some of his money from the nascent Church), is the contradiction implied in the Church militant, that is, a religion of peace being used for military conquest as a means of spiritual conquest. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

346 British Drama - I 10.7 The Alchemist (Jonson) A Short Stage History The first performance of The Alchemist that we know of was in Oxford in 1610. There were no reviews, but one member of the audience, Henry Jackson (an Oxford fellow), recorded his disgusted reaction. He wrote that though the play received \"great applause,\" the actors were \"not content with attacking alchemists, they most foully violated the sacred scriptures themselves.\" The date of the action of the play itself is November 1, 1610, which may indeed be the date on which Jackson saw the play. The play was extremely popular during the late 1600s and early to mid-1700s, and it was constantly in revival. Samuel Pepys saw a production in 1661 and pronounced it \"incomparable\". Garrick famously played Drugger in 1743, turning it into the play's main part. He also cut 1,000 of the play's 3,000 lines and introduced new sections to beef up Drugger's part. Garrick's success led to several spin-offs, including a play called The Tobacconist by Francis Gentleman, which is all about Abel Drugger. There was even a tobacconist's shop set up in London called \"The Abel Drugger.\" By the late 1700s, though, The Alchemist had disappeared almost altogether, replaced, it seems, by The Tobacconist. The great actor Edmund Kean (about whom Coleridge famously wrote that \"seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning\") actually played in The Tobacconist (but not The Alchemist) in 1815. Throughout the 19th century, the play was not revived until William Poel rediscovered it for an 1899 production. This in turned paved the way for Alec Guinness to follow in Garrick's footsteps — Guinness similarly stole the reviews as Drugger in John Burrell's production at the New Theatre in 1947. Kenneth Tynan pronounced him \"the best living English character-actor\" in light of this performance. Tyrone Guthrie revived the play in modern dress in 1962, a decision that caused much controversy and necessitated Guthrie's justification, in an article in The Times, which claimed that using Jacobean dress who \"would know when Face was a Captain or a House Servant? Whether Subtle was a Divine or a Doctor?\" This revival perhaps more than any other modern one CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The Alchemist: Ben Jonson 347 reintroduced the high-paced farce to the repertoire, so that eight years later, Stuart Burge could transfer his production from the Nottingham Playhouse to the West End (New Theatre) in 1970. The author of this ClassicNote has seen the play three times: a lackluster National Theatre staging had Simon Callow as Face (1993), a hugely inventive revival was staged by the Swan Theatre Company in Cambridge (2006), and Nicholas Hytner led a superlative production in the same year for the National Theatre, London, which starred Alex Jennings and Simon Russell Beale (pictured, opposite). 10.8 The Alchemist (Jonson) Modern Analogues The Alchemist speaks directly to many modern concerns, and it has influenced directly or indirectly many succeeding plays and films. Below is a selection of works that may be interesting to view or read and then compare with Jonson's play. One also should recall Ben Jonson’s own Volpone (1606). Some of these works focus on the theatricality and farcical nature of the play; others, on the nature of conmanship. All should provide interesting reading or viewing and should furnish the student with some interesting analogues to Jonson's play. 10.9 Unit End Questions (MCQ and Descriptive) A. Descriptive Types Questions 1. Write a note on Ben Johnson’s art of characterization in The Alchemist. in about 800 words. 2. Explain Alchemist as comedy of humours 3. Write in brief about the dramatic themes of drama \"The alchemist\" 4. What kind of tone has been used by Ben Johnson in the play The Alchemist? 5. What do you understand by the term ‘the alchemist’? 6. Greed for money and power in Ben Jonson alchemist 7. Importance of money in the alchemist CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

348 British Drama - I 8. Discuss the appropriateness of the names given to the characters in the play? 9. Discuss role playing character transformation and disguise in Ben Jonson the alchemist 10. How does Coelho set the tone of the book within the first couple of pages 11. Evaluate Ben Jonson’s the alchemist? 12. Explain Jonsonian comedy 13. Show how language reflects the social standing, the temperament, or the intellectual background of various characters.? 14. What is the significance of the word “Humour” in Ben Johnson’s The Alchemist? 15. How Ben Johnson does satirize the follies and vanities of the people of his age in The Alchemist? 16. Throw light on the main themes of the play The Alchemist. in about 800 words. 17. Discuss Jonsonian comedy with reference to alchemist? 18. Critically comment on the theme of Jonson’s the alchemist 19. What features make Alchemist an allegory? 20. What are the meta-theatrical elements you find in the play Alchemist? 21. Does anyone out there hate this book? 22. Analyse the character played by Jonson in Alchemist 23. Write a note on the theme of lust and greed as developed in The Alchemist. 24. In Jonson's The Alchemist, what is the relevance of the character of Dame Pliant? B. Multiple Choice/Objective Type Questions 1. Where does Face claim he found Subtle? (a) Homeless on the streets, dressed in rags (b) In a theatre (c) In prison (d) Near a church CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The Alchemist: Ben Jonson 349 2. Where is the play set? (a) Cookham (b) Hackney (c) Blackfriars (d) Manchester 3. Alchemy is the practice of turning base metal into what? (a) Gold (b) Lead (c) Silver (d) Pewter 4. What does Dapper want from the Doctor? (a) Money (b) Information about his new shop (c) A gambling fly (d) The philosopher’s stone 5. What does Subtle tell Drugger to write on his north walls? (a) Sunday, Monday, Tuesday (b) THRAA, RAA, VRAA (c) RAEL, VELEL,THIEL (d) LABBE, GABBE, CRAUNCE Answers 1. (a), 2. (c), 3. (a), 4. (c), 5. (c) 10.10 Reference 1. https://www.gradesaver.com/the-alchemist-jonson/study-guide/modern-analogues 2. Craig, D. H. Ben Jonson: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge, 1999. 3. Donaldson, Ian. Jonson's Magic Houses: Essays in Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. 4. Gurr, Andrew. Play-going in Shakespeare's London. 2nd edition; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 5. Keenan, Siobhan. Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare's London. London: Arden, 2014.112-20. 6. Lake, Peter, with Michael Questier. The Anti-Christ's Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists & Players in Post-Reformation England. Yale University Press, 2002. 7. Ouellette, Anthony. \"The Alchemist and the Emerging Adult Private Playhouse.\" SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 45 (2005). CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)