"The dialogue often zings, and Berger orchestrates the farcical comings and goings on Alexis Distler’s bi-level set at the requisite madcap pace — at the performance I attended, the excellent Rogers (who played the director of the musical-within-the-musical in “Tootsie”) ad-libbed a line about all the stairs he had to climb. But the show is better at setting up the plot than at resolving it when we return from intermission — it is, after all, easier to throw a bunch of pins up in the air than it is to juggle them."
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"4 stars!...Berger and Hatcher put all of them through their fast paces, disguising some structural weaknesses in the play itself; the promise of the first act isn’t quite met in the second, when the threads of the story wind up looping into knots. It’s a strange amalgam: a shaggy-dog farce. But even when The Alchemist loses the plot, its energetic plotters are fun to watch."
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"Powered by implausible situations and the kind of supercharged comic performances that make those situations seem perfectly acceptable, The Alchemist represents a mighty return for Red Bull Theater, the scrappy troupe with a joyously modern outlook on the classics."
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There's no way to describe the mélange of plot, counterplot, and subplot that follows, as the bell rings, new disguises are thrown around the room, and doors open and shut with precision. As in Jonson, the action is really a series of comings and goings with little overall design. But the hilarity remains steady for the two-hour running time, largely, I suspect because Berger and company know exactly how far to take this nonsense, staying on just this side of comic excess. It's a remarkable balancing act.
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"4 stars!...Jesse Berger, who heads the Red Bull Theater, has a soft spot in his heart for comedy/dramas past and has now given The Alchemist more than a moment’s thought. He’s directed and produced an entertaining revival-revisal for our time. He’s accomplished this using Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation and tapping some of the best farceurs hanging around these days."
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While Berger’s work with the actors is excellent, the pace might be quicker, although considering the complicated plot (Coleridge notwithstanding) it might become harder to follow. Felciano and Rogers are a bit more muted than one would expect for the con-artists but never go beyond credulity. As Dapper, Elrod who has entertained us in such David Ives’ satires as The Liar, The Heir Apparent, Lives of the Saints and All in the Timing isn’t given much to do which is not his fault.
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Jonson’s farce requires rapid pacing, of course. The question is, must it be a supercharged, 0-to-3 door-slammer that would make the Marx Brothers at their zaniest look like novices? Each actor is a talented clown, with individual moments of comic glitter, and each brings distinctive…colorings to their shenanigans. But since their chief goal appears to get laughs at any cost rather than create even a modicum of reality, the play becomes secondary to their overstated carryings on.
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