THE THEATRE.
THE PHOENIX.—" VOLPONE OR THE FOXE," BY BEN JONSON.
WHATEVER we may think of Ben Jonson's comedies, nothing could have bettered the Phoenix's production of his Volpone.
It was energetic as well as intelligent, the ensembles were excellent, and some of the acting most admirable. When Ben. Jonson sat down and wrote a play he at the same time invariably contrived to raise a dust. His efforts, like those of the strong man at the fair, were very often disproportionate to the weight raised. We watch him heave at something with groans and straining muscles, and when it is up it proves only a bladder.
But Volpone was worth the toil and sweat, though we are aware of the effort. It is a comedy of intrigue with triple, quadruple involutions, and an end happy only in the Swiftian
sense—that all the rogues are brought to justice. The plot and situations are fresh enough even now, and most of the characterization unusually modern. There is very little of the formal conventional characterization which the Elizabethans inherited from the morality play, and to which Ben Jonson gave fresh life with his theory of the Humours. Many of the per- sonages of the piece are credible human beings ; all are
living in the sense that figures in a Pietro Longhi picture live. The ingenuity of this, the argument, is typical of the play :- " V olpone, childlease, rich, faines sicke, despaires, O gers his State to hopes of eeverall heyres, L Les languishing ; his Parasite receaues P resents of all, assures, deludes : Then weaues
O ther crosse-plots, which ope' themselves, are told.
N ew tricks for safety are sought ; they thriue : When, bold,
E ach tempts tie' other againe, and all are sold."
Not that, as a matter of fact, it gives a very good account of the plot, for the whole catastrophe is concerned with the intrigues of the Parasite Mosea to procure Celia, wife of one of Volpone's deluded heirs, for his master. This affair results in a dramatic scene in which Volpone urges his love first with gold, then with force ; the lady is rescued just in the nick of time, and the whole scandal comes before the Doge and his council.
Then we have a quite admirable trial scene, when the rogues put up an amazing and temporarily successful defence, or rather counter-attack, but, being grown too bold, in the end they overreach themselves. But this is not until the audience have been exhilarated by a ding-dong race for the plunder, now one faction or one villain seeming the winner and now another. It is Ben Jonson in his most railing mood, hating and mocking at his venal creatures.
Mr. Ion Swinley surpassed himself as Mosea the Parasite. Mr. Baliol Holloway was a powerful Volpone, steering a clever course amid many pitfalls and never making him the con- ventional miser. Mr. Eugene Leahy had in Sir Politique Would-Bee a part that suited him admirably. Miss Margaret Yarde was inimitable as his boring wife, with her perennial stream of talk and her unwavering brightness. Volpone's train of dwarf, fool, and hermaphrodite was extremely well played. Altogether the play was well worth seeing.
It is curious how much this play, first produced in 1605, belongs to the next chapter of dramatic development. It has the faults and virtues of Racine, Dryden, and Otway. There are no vain chasings after puns, no blunders, indeed, of any kind, and no spontaneity or poetry either. It is, within its con- ventions, a masterpiece of construction. It is a sustained piece of satire, a triumph of technique of which no other Elizabethan was the least capable. For this we now forgive a certain shallow aridity which damned it with the last generation.
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