Polly conjures up Alchemist revival at Stratford

Published: 20 May 2016
Reporter: Steve Orme

Back at Stratford: Polly Findlay Credit: Johan Persson

Polly Findlay who directed the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2015 production of The Merchant of Venice is to return to Stratford to direct Ben Jonson’s satire The Alchemist.

Findlay won the James Menzies-Kitchen Trust’s award for young theatre directors in 2007. Five years later she was joint winner of the Olivier Award for best entertainment for Derren Brown: Svengali.

She made her RSC directorial debut with the 2014 production of Arden of Faversham, an Elizabethan play whose author is unknown. The Merchant of Venice featured Palestinian actor Makram J Khoury as Shylock.

The Alchemist is set during a time when London is hit by an outbreak of the plague. Wealthy Lovewit flees to the country, leaving his townhouse in the hands of his trusted butler Jeremy. But no sooner has his master left than Jeremy begins turning the house into a den of criminal activity.

Assuming an alias, he recruits fellow conman Subtle and prostitute Doll Common to help him and sets out to rip off half of London. Soon every knock at the front door is another unwitting victim begging to be relieved of their cash. Things could not be going better for the gleeful trio until they receive an unwelcome visitor.

Ken Nwosu—Gratiano and Morocco in The Merchant of Venice and a gentleman of Cyprus in Othello in 2015—is also returning to the RSC and will play butler-turned-fraudster Face.

Mark Lockyer, who featured in Rufus Norris’s 2015 film London Road and played Roderigo at the Swan Theatre in Gregory Doran’s 2004 production of Othello, plays Face’s con-artist aid Subtle.

Siobhán McSweeney, who featured in Polly Findlay’s 2016 production of As You Like It at the National Theatre, plays their partner in crime, prostitute Dol Common.

Ian Redford, last seen on the Swan stage in The Roaring Girls season in 2014, plays Sir Epicure Mammon.

The rest of the cast comprises Will Bliss (neighbour / officer), John Cummins (Ananias), Ruth Everett (neighbour), Gabriel Fleary (neighbour / officer), Theo Fraser Steele (neighbour), Natey Jones (neighbour / officer), Richard Leeming (Abel Drugger), Tom McCall (Kastril), Joshua McCord (Dapper), Hywel Morgan (Lovewit), Rosa Robson (Dame Pliant), Tim Samuels (Sir Pertinax Surly), Timothy Speyer (Tribulation Wholesome) and Eleanor Wyld (neighbour).

The Alchemist is designed by Helen Goddard, with lighting by Charles Balfour and sound by Gregory Clarke. The movement director is Clive Mendus, with fights by Kate Waters. Original prologue and script revisions are by Stephen Jeffreys.

The Alchemist runs in the Swan Theatre, Stratford from Thursday 26 May until Saturday 6 August. Afterwards it transfers to London's Barbican from 2 September until 1 October.

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