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 SEANNA VAN HELTEN chats to performer LIZ SKITCH about why greed is good in Queensland Theatre Company’s production of Ben Jonson’s THE ALCHEMIST.
Liz Skitch is breaking down the finer points of comic acting. "As a clown, my natural tendency is to play directly for the audience, so it’s kind of like the most extreme comedy there is – extreme comedy!" she giggles, interrupting herself. "But when I’m playing in The Alchemist my number one priority is to serve the script, to serve the direction, to serve my fellow artist on stage – as well as considering the audience."
An accomplished actor, writer and comedian, Skitch ought to know. She joins the twelve-person cast of Queensland Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare’s co-production of The Alchemist, one of Renaissance playwright Ben Jonson’s best-surviving plays and a characteristic example of a great Elizabethan farce.
The setting is seventeenth-century London and Lovewit, ‘Master of the House,’ flees to the countryside to avoid an outbreak of the plague, leaving his housekeeper, Face, in charge. Face invites to stay his friend the alchemist, a dodgy potion-dealer called Subtle, and the duo unleash on nine gullible Londoners a series of dupes and swindles, aided by the wily prostitute Dol Common.
Skitch plays Dame Pliant, "a nineteen-year old widow who has come to London with her brother to learn the fashion and find a husband," the actor explains. Skitch is careful not to reveal too much of her character’s role in the carefully-wound satirical plot but she hints that Dame Pliant drives a wedge between two competing protagonists, "like Yoko Ono," she laughs.
The dramatis personae of a farce typically lists a number of extravagant ‘types,’ caricatures of recognisable social figures (lawyers, sex addicts, and power-hungry preachers), although director John Bell encouraged the cast to "play our characters as honestly as we can," Skitch says. "On day one he said, ‘I want you to love your characters, I want you to play your characters lovingly and honestly and as truthfully as possible,’" Skitch recalls. "Having said that, oh gee, there’s some very funny work happening up on stage!"
In spite of the cause for humour, the characters are "desperate souls," Skitch continues. "The play really does explore greed and how easy it is to con people who have unrealistic desires and illusions of grandeur." Subtle and Face succeed in their numerous dupes because of their victims’ own failings. "There is that desperateness that they’re playing on, that vulnerability in all of us," Skitch explains of the two con artists. "It’s very sad at the end to watch all of these people realise they’ve been conned. There’s a kind of pathos."
A neat contemporary parallel might be large-scale Ponzi schemes or the recent Madoff investment fraud scandal. Skitch believes Jonson was observing desperation, greed, and fraud occurring around him as he wrote The Alchemist. "Society continues to repeat itself and so it continues to be relevant. Although, societies change through technology and such and we now work on a global scale, so of course the scams are just bigger."
An accomplished comic actor, part of the challenge of working in The Alchemist has been to resist simply "playing for laughs": "John keeps saying, ‘Stamp on the laughs, stamp on the laughs!’" says Skitch.
Nonetheless, ten days out from the production’s opening night, Skitch is thrilled at how the madcap production has come together. "Now we’re running the show and it feels great and we’ve realised that this series of cameos that we’ve been rehearsing are all part of a bigger picture," she says. "It’s come together so seamlessly but that’s because we’re in expert hands."
THE ALCHEMIST plays at the Playhouse, QPAC, from February 23 – March 14 before touring to Sydney, Canberra and Perth. Under 30 tickets: $30. For bookings phone Qtix 136 246 or visit www.qldtheatreco.com.au.
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