The Alchemist

In Term 2, the Senior School students delighted with a kaleidoscopic telling of The Alchemist by Elizabethan playwright Ben Jonson.

After 35 rehearsals, over 200 hours of practice, thousands of lines learnt, blood, sweat and tears we had made it to opening night. The electricity down in the green room was palpable. A small, intimate cast of 28 Camberwell Boys and Canterbury Girls were excitedly getting costumes on, makeup done, drinking copious amounts of pineapple juice, and running back over those lines and scenes which still managed to trip them up. Quietly as I watched everyone take their spots whilst the pre-show announcement played, I reflected on what had been one of the most exciting and challenging experiences of my time at Camberwell Grammar.

It’s funny how attached you get to a theatre production. It was only 7 months ago that The Alchemist was announced as our Senior School play; summarised by our ever-extravagant Head of Drama, Andrew Stocker, as a hilarious and satirical comedy; however, upon glancing over the dense Elizabethan script we weren’t so sure. But soon the stage was set, and over the coming three months of rehearsals the complex and often convoluted language became easier and easier to decipher and the cast quickly warmed to the clever language and often confusing comedic stylings of English playwright, Ben Jonson. Fundamentally a farce, The Alchemist is a comedy seeking to entertain its audience through highly absurd and exaggerated situations, sequences, and characters. Subsequently, the production quickly became rooted in the cast. The ensemble is what kept the wheel turning and the audience engaged. From the impeccable comedic timings of Fletcher Von Arx (Year 11), as the boisterous Epicure Mammon, and Colin Jiang (Year 11), as the brash housekeeper Lovewitt, to the reactionary, nosy and snooping antics of the countless Neighbours and partygoers, an animated and spirited ensemble was created ready to tackle any insane ideas Mr Stocker had lurking up his sleeve. Although, if the ensemble was what kept the production going, we soon found out that the audience was what kept us alive. We quickly discovered that the crowd’s reaction each night fed into our performances increasing exponentially and culminating in an electric and thrilling closing night. The interplay and relationship between actor and audience became a defining feature of our production. The way in which Hayden Whiteford’s (Year 12) Subtle played out to the audience, breaking the fourth wall and bouncing off their energy, or Aidan Harris’ (Year 12) Pertinax Surly, regularly looked out to the audience in his iconic sardonic manner, developed tangible energy in the theatre. The audience became a part of the production, a character in themselves, with their laughter and reactions elevating each performance into a vibrant state. Simply put, as the audience had more fun with the show, so did we. Effectively, the simplest way one could sum up The Alchemist is fun. Ridiculous and bawdy fun. You could see it from the

audience, from the wings and the screens side stage. Every cast member exuded a sense of playfulness, testing the limits of their acting abilities every night. From explosions to fights and slamming back shots of apple juice, we were having a ball on stage and it showed. Naturally, praises must be extended toward the variety of duos that lent their hands and acting prowess to the production. Benjamin Wardlaw (Year 12) and Connor Inston’s (Year 10) bumbling double act, The Drugger Brothers, Sam Parmenter (Year 12) and Adele Kostopoulos’ brother and sister duet and William Lewis (Year 12) and William Allsop’s (Year 10) religious fanatics were audience favourites, existing in small dynamic doses scattered throughout the production and enriching each scene. I would also like to honour Cooper Carbone (Year 10) and his show-stopping performance as Dapper; for his energetic and bubbly stage presence and additionally for the fact that he was able to act for over an hour straight, blindfolded upstage on a toilet. Ultimately, I am so glad that I was a part of this production and that I was able to perform alongside such a powerful, theatrical triumvirate (comprised of the insanely talented Jasmine Hosken and Hayden Whiteford) who kept me grounded and pushed me in my role as Face. People keep asking me how I feel now that it’s over, now that my time performing at Camberwell as a student has ended. I expected myself to feel sad and a sense of existential dread with no rehearsals to occupy my time each week but, after all the excitement, all the energy and the thrill dissipated, all I felt was an overwhelming sense of pride. Pride not only over the fact that we performed one of the most challenging works of Elizabethan fiction to perfection but the fact that I was able to work with such an amazing and inspiring cast, that we were able to see each other grow as actors and have a hell-of-a-lot of fun along the way.

Nicholas Sarlos-Welsh

Captain of Drama