The Alchemist Programme

WWW.CREATIONTHEATRE.CO.UK @creationtheatre Welcome to this evening’s performance of The Alchemist. We are thrilled to be presenting this riotous adaptation of a play written over 400 years ago, and the fact that it’s in a room not usually open to the public feels like the very essence of Creation has been distilled for you here tonight. Enjoy!

Dr Helen Eastman Artistic Director and CEO Artistic Team Director – Anna Tolputt Designer – Delphine Du Barry Sound Designer – Patrick Stockbridge Lighting Consultant – Catja Hamilton Movement Director – Bronya Deutsch Production Manager - Giles Stoakley Deputy Production Manager - Chris Humphries DSM – Morna Weir For Creation Chief Executive: Helen Eastman General Manager: Charlie Morley Producers: Michael Deacon & Katie Blackwell Marketing Manager: Tamsin Purchase Education Managers: Jess Braviner & Sarah Headen Education Facilitators: Claire Mills & Ryan Duncan

Cast Face: Herb Cuanalo Subtle, Officer: Nicholas Osmond Dol, Kastril: Emily Woodward Lovewit, Surly, Drugger: Claire Redcliffe Mammon, Dapper, Ananias, Neighbour: Clive Duncan Herb Cuanalo graduated from the Bristol Old Vic School. Theatre includes: From Rushmere With Love (Eastern Angles); Hound of the Baskervilles (The Barn Theatre); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Faction Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Redbridge Arts Centre); Titus Andronicus (Siege Theatre). And for Creation Theatre The Signalman, Wesley Memorial Church; Much Ado about Nothing, South Oxford Adventure Playground.

Clive Duncan is an actor, writer and theatre director.

After training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he performed in regional, touring and West End theatre and appeared on screen in single dramas, series and presented children’s television. He has written for community, education and children’s theatre with numerous scripts broadcast on BBC, Scottish TV and Channel 5. His adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is currently touring Austria with Vienna’s English Theatre. His directing experience encompasses classical, contemporary, educational, devised and pantomime, for companies in Britain and abroad. In 2014 he relocated from London to the Southwest and has since worked for Oxford Playhouse, Polka Theatre, Prime Theatre, Reading Rep, Groundswell, Vienna’s English Theatre, Watershed Productions and Wassail Theatre Company. Most recently he toured If You Fall with Theatre Ad Infinitum.

Nick Osmond trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Previously for Creation: Friar Lawrence’s Confessional; Horatio And Hamlet; A Christmas Carol; Alice; Aladdin; Much Ado About Nothing; Rapunzel.

Theatre includes: Henry V, Antic Disposition; Witness For The Prosecution, London City Hall; The Lion King, international tour; Measure For Measure, Union Theatre; An Inspector Calls, UK tour for The National Theatre; King John, Union Theatre; The Shell Seekers

UK tour; Oblomov’s Dream, Jermyn Street Theatre; Cyclops, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, both at The Scoop Amphitheatre; Phys-Ed, 24/7 Theatre Festival (MEN Theatre Award nomination – best performance in a fringe production); The Tale of the Beauty and the Tail of the Beast, The North Wall; The Signalman, Wesley Memorial Church; Much Ado about Nothing, South Oxford Adventure Playground. Film/TV: Roadkill; The Six Wives of Henry VIII; The Sarah Jane Adventures; Victorian Values; Battle For Britain.

Audio: Nicholas played Leon in BBC Radio 4’s, The Archers. Nicholas has also recorded numerous audio books, commercials, English language learning tapes, audio guides and has done ADR recording for several major TV and film productions, including: The Tourist, The Crown and Harry Potter.

Claire Redcliffe. Theatre includes; Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (Actors From The London Stage), Gertrude in Hamlet (National Primary Theatre), Mole in Wind in the Willows (Creation Theatre Company), Olivia/ Maria in Twelfth Night (Actors from the London Stage), Jane in But It Still Goes On (Finborough Theatre), Titania/Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream (The Factory Company/Willow Globe), Leonato/ Hero in Much Ado About Nothing (Actors From The London Stage), Sister Rosa in Cyrano de Bergerac (Grosvenor Park Open Air), Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Grosvenor Park Open Air), Charlotte/ Martha in Charlotte’s Web (Birmingham Stage Company), Dorothy in Stepping Out (Salisbury Playhouse), Ann in Outward Bound

(Finborough Theatre), Donna in A Wordless Thing (Theatre 503), Melinda in Perchance to Dream (Finborough Theatre), Celia in As You Like It (Lamb Theatre) , understudy Nancy in When We Are Married (Garrick Theatre), Phoebe Throssel in Quality Street (Finborough Theatre), Portia in The Merchant of Venice (Lamb Theatre), Bet in Oliver (Lamaca Amphitheatre), Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing, Nancy in When We Are Married (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Estella in Great Expectations (Manchester Library Theatre), Ophelia in Hamlet (The Factory), Hatty in Tom’s MIdnight Garden (Manchester Library Theatre), Kit/Shona in Top GIrls (Watford Palace Theatre), Dinah Lord in High Society (Shaftesbury Theatre), Lucy in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Eva in Kindertransport (Octagon Theatre) *Best actress nominations for Manchester Evening News Awards, Erica in Question Time (Arcola Theatre), Dinah Lord in High Society (Regents Park Open Air), Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Regents Park Open Air), Lucy Lockit in The Beggar’s Opera (Orange Tree), Maggie in Engaged (Orange Tree,) Ophelia in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Theatr Clwyd) and Sophia Freelove in The Road to Ruin (Orange Tree). Television includes; Dr King in Cuckoo - Series 2 and 3 (BBC), Dr Cath McCall/Hannah Moss/Jade Meadows/Lisa Patterson in Doctors (BBC), Shannon in Eastenders (BBC), Fiona Carr in Holby City (BBC), Alice in The Royal (Yorkshire Television), Wendy in Auf Wiedersehen Pet (BBC).

Film includes; Miss Knight in Pretty Red Dress,

Boarding School Mistress in Christopher Robin and Dancer in Charlotte Gray.

Emily Woodward trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Theatre credits include: The Last Ones (Jermyn Street Theatre), Vivie Warren in Mrs Warren's Profession (UK Tour), Private Lives (The Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh), The Winter's Tale, The Grapes of Wrath, Under Milk Wood, Assumption (Mercury Theatre, Colchester), Macbeth (Drayton Theatre, London), Princess Diana in Fred and Gladys (The Landor, London), Virgins (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh and national tour), Full Circle (UK tour).

And for Creation Theatre, The Tale of the Beauty and the Tail of the Beast (The North Wall) Much Ado about Nothing, (South Oxford Adventure Playground). Film and TV credits include: Father Brown, Splinter, Heroes and Villains, The House Of Angelo and Doctors. Radio/Audio credits include: Tara King in multiple series of The Avengers (Big Finish), Doctor Who (Big Finish), Charlie's Choice, Hedge of Thorns and A Peek Behind the Scenes (Lamplighter Theatre).

Thank you to The Mathematical Institute for allowing us to use their amazing space, to Les Gordon, a member of the Oxford Photographic Society for taking the production photographs and to all our volunteer ushers.

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Director’s Note Alchemy and The Alchemist Anna Tolputt The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Alchemy as: a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy, aiming to achieve the transmutation of the base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal cure for disease, and the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging life.

a serious study; as well as being considered the root of chemistry, it also straddled the realms of philosophy and religion. In the 20th century, Jung used it as the basis for his work on archetypes and collective unconscious. In a way it has had a much bigger influence on our thinking today than we are perhaps aware.

The philosopher’s stone was in fact a substance or tincture, not a stone, which supposedly had the power to transmute metal into gold. It is also a metaphor for enlightenment and self-knowledge. In order to achieve it, the base material had to undergo a 7-stage process, a stripping down, both material and psychological. That is why, as Surly says, the owner of the philosopher’s stone “must be a pious, holy and religious man, one free from mortal sin” and Mammon, in the timeworn fashion of the capitalist profiteer says: “he is so, but I buy it”.

During Ben Jonson’s time, a scepticism was starting to build up around Alchemy, especially as it attracted so many charlatans. We can see resonances for our own era and our lying, political ruling class. It feels very apt that the ultimate winner of the play is the rich owner of the apartment, who reaps all the benefits of the scam without once having to get her own hands dirty. But I think the area in which Jonson’s play most resonates now is in the way the victims’ own fantasies and obsessive desires play into their fate. The practice of Alchemy exists everywhere today, from ludicrously expensive skincare products to digital art, and we embrace it. We love the feeling of buying something expensive, even if it sometimes doesn’t exist. We are happy to be duped.

My inspiration for directing this play came from walking into a shop and seeing a can of pop being sold for £15 because it had been promoted by an influencer.

Without the Subtles, Faces and Dols, the world would be a greyer place.

As well as transforming metals into gold, the philosopher’s stone (also known as the elixir of life) was believed to bring about eternal health and youth. Mammon suggests that he is going to use it to cure the plague.

Despite having almost entirely fallen out of our modern consciousness, Alchemy had been around for ages when Jonson was writing. The first recorded evidence of it with detailed instructions (albeit pretty impenetrable ones) pre-date Christianity. It was taken seriously by several leading scientists; Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle were well known Alchemists, as was Oxford’s own Elias Ashmole (of Ashmolean fame). It is difficult to ascertain how many people actually succeeded in transmuting base matter to gold (probably none), but it was nonetheless

Synopsis An outbreak of plague in London causes Lovewit to leave London temporarily.

She leaves her penthouse under the sole charge of her employee, Jeremy; this is a mistake, as Jeremy uses the opportunity to turn the apartment into the headquarters of a scamming enterprise. He transforms himself into "Captain Face," and teams up with street con artist, Subtle and prostitute, Dol Common.

With Subtle masquerading as the master of alchemical, astrological, and magical arts, the trio offer a variety of deceptions to their unsuspecting customers, who pay handsomely.

The play opens with a violent argument between Subtle and Face concerning the division of the riches which they have. Dol breaks the pair apart and reasons with them that they must work as a team if they are to succeed. Their first customer is Dapper, a lawyer's clerk who wishes Subtle to use his supposed necromantic skills to summon a "familiar" or spirit to help in his gambling ambitions. The tripartite suggest that Dapper has won favour with the "Queen of Fairy," but he must subject himself to humiliating rituals in order for her to help him. Their second victim is Drugger, a tobacconist, who is keen to establish a profitable business. After this, a wealthy nobleman, Sir Epicure Mammon, arrives, expressing the desire to gain himself the philosopher's stone, which he believes will bring him huge material wealth as well as the ability to cure illnesses. He is accompanied by Surly, a sceptic, who suspects Subtle of being a charlatan. Dol arrives, to lure Mammon further, dressed as an aristocratic maths student who has gone insane studying ancient rulers. Subtle reminds Mammon that he must be pure to win the philosophers stone.

Mammon goes home to empty his house of metal goods to be turned into gold by the philosophers stone. Surly resolves to come back in disguise to find out what the con artists are up to. Drugger brings news that a rich young widow (Dame Pliant) and her brother (Kastril) have arrived in London; Subtle and Face both decide to try to win the widow.

Ananias, a priest, arrives, and Subtle sells him all of Mammon’s metal with the promise that it will be turned into gold for the brethren. Dapper returns and is told that he will soon meet with the Queen of Fairy. Kastril arrives with Drugger and on being told that Subtle is a skilled match-maker, rushes to fetch his sister. Dapper is then blindfolded and subjected to 'fairy' humiliations, but on the reappearance of Mammon, he is gagged and hastily thrust into the privy.

Face brokers a secret meeting between the “aristocratic mathematician” (Dol) and Mammon. Kastril and his sister return; Kastril is given a lesson in ‘quarrelling’, and the widow captivates both Face and Subtle, who fight over her. Surly returns, disguised as a Spanish filmstar. Face and Subtle believe that he has come for a woman, but Dol is ‘engaged' with Mammon, so Face has the inspiration of using Dame Pliant instead.

They pretend that the Spanish filmstar is a Count and she is persuaded by her social climber brother, Kastril, to go off with Surly. In order to get rid of Mammon, Dol contrives a fit of madness and there is an 'explosion' in the 'laboratory'. Subtle claims it was caused by Mammon thinking impure thoughts.

Surly reveals his true identity to Dame Pliant and confronts Face and Subtle. Face recruits Kastril to fight him off claiming that Surly is an imposter, posing as the Spanish count whom they were expecting. Kastril and Ananias chase Surly away.

Drugger is told to go and find a Spanish costume if he is to have a chance of winning the widow, at the same time as Dol brings news that Lovewit has returned unexpectedly from the country.

Lovewit's neighbours tell her that her house had many visitors during her absence. Face is now the plausible Jeremy again, and denies the accusation, telling her that he has kept the house locked up because of the plague. Surly, Mammon, Kastril and Ananias all return, furious, and there is a cry from the privy; Dapper has chewed through his gag!

Jeremy can no longer maintain the lie, and promises Lovewit that if she pardons him, he will help her obtain a rich widow (i.e., Dame Pliant). She has only to dress up as a Spanish filmstar. Dapper meets the "Queen of Fairy" and is ushered out by Subtle and Dol. Face tells Subtle and Dol that he has confessed to Lovewit, and that the police are on the way; Subtle and Dol have to flee, empty handed.

Lovewit marries the widow and claims Mammon's goods; Surly, Mammon and Kastril depart disconsolately. Lovewit pays tribute to the ingenuity of his servant, and Face asks for the audience's forgiveness.

Photos: Les Gordon