One of the things I really want to do while I am here is see everything that the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) does, at least in London. (Stratford is a bit too far away, unless one stays overnight. We’ll probably do that at some point, but you can see most of the RSC performances at the Barbican or the West End, so it isn’t an essential trip.) We bought tickets to the four plays they are doing at the Barbican as soon as they were released to members. Given Judie’s upcoming travel schedule and the change in routine generally occasioned by the change of law firms, we decided to see the first two RSC productions on consecutive nights.

“The Alchemist”: This is a play by Ben Johnson, a Shakespeare contemporary. As the programme points out, while Shakespeare’s plays were entirely set in the past, Johnson’s were contemporary and, indeed, “The Alchemist” is set in Blackfriars (a part of London) in 1610 and premiered at the The Globe that same year. So the characters would have been recognizable types to those audiences and the references to things like the plague would be things they were familiar with. It is also likely that the audiences of that time believed in the possibility of Alchemy. Unlike Shakespeare, Johnson oversaw the publication of his own Folio and was thought to have expanded the plays to make them seem more serious. This requires some significant cutting of the text to give it a proper running time and to maintain the pace.

The play begins as the master of the house in Blackfriars is fleeing London to his country home to get away from the latest plague epidemic, leaving his servant, Jeremy or “Face”, in charge of the house. The servant sees this as chance to make money and teams up with Subtle, an alchemist and con man, and his colleague Dol. They start a number of elaborate con games, most based on either turning base metals into gold or on creating a philosopher’s stone. (Neither the stone nor Nicholas Flammel were creations of J.K. Rowling. Flammel was a successful merchant who died in 1418, but in the 1600’s rumors began to circulate that he had found both the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of immortality.) The three of them attract an increasing number of victims and, in order for the their cons to succeed, have to string each of them along and try to keep them from meeting each other. It is really a farce, with the three con artists becoming more and more manic as they get closer to succeeding in their various frauds, but also are getting closer and closer to being found out. Of course, Jeremy’s master returns home just as things are reaching their peak. It is really a wonderful play and there is something timeless about con artists and the greed of their victims. It goes without saying that the acting was uniformly wonderful, although none of the actors were familiar to me. Ken Nwosu, as Face, Mark Lockyer, as Subtle, and Siobhan McSweeney, as Dol, managed to be simultaneously reprehensible and lovable. You were horrified by what they were doing, but sort of were rooting for them to succeed. The victims of the frauds were all memorable in their own ways. The unbelievably greedy and lecherous knight, Sir Epicure Mammon (what a great name), played by Ian Redford, was hysterical and Tom McCall, playing a rich country who was willing to pay Subtle to be taught to argue like the suave gallants of the city, absolutely stole several scenes. Judie loved the young actor, Richard Leeming, who played Abel Drugger, a tobacconist seeking magical help to insure his business’s success. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening of theater.

Doctor Faustus: The next night was a very different theatrical experience. Everyone knows the basic plot–Faustus sells his soul to the devil for a period of personal power. But I didn’t appreciate how terrifying the play would be. It was written by Christopher Marlowe, another Shakespeare contemporary, although the programme notes suggest that it was actually a collaborative work. Two actors, Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan, alternate in playing the two main parts, Faustus and Mephistopheles. (We saw Ryan as Faustus.) They were both wonderful, but seem like very different sorts of performers and I would think their performances would be very distinct. One of the interesting things that the production did was use a very dark palette in the sets and in the costumes, with the exception of Mephistopheles and a female Lucifer (the devil), who were dressed in bright white. While I think much of the original dialog was maintained, especially for Faustus, special “devil music” was added. The most memorable scene was when Lucifer appears to Faustus and introduces him to the seven deadly sins. This was done like a musical production number, with each of the sins in outlandish and grotesque costumes. One of the slightly surprising things about the plot was that Faustus used his power in a series of horrifying (one might say devilish) ways and one never got the feeling that he was getting real enjoyment from his power other that by the fact of having it. The programme notes observe that this must all have been especially terrifying to audiences of the day, who believed in the reality of dark arts and intervention of the devil in daily life. So the production stresses the creepiness and terror inherent in the plot. It was done without an interval, so the audience never gets away from the bizarre and horrifying series of events, which occur at an increasing pace, from the time that Faustus calls Mephistopheles to serve him, all the way to his increasing panic as the time approaches when the devil will take him and his soul. There is lots of blood and two great performers, surrounded by a marvelous ensemble cast, with clever direction and eerie music. It made for a memorable evening of theater.

Blueprint for Better Business: Earlier last week, I joined Judie at K&L Gates for a presentation and panel put on by Blueprint for Better Business (BBB), entitled “Uniting Corporate Purpose and Personal Values to Serve Society”. It argues that businesses should be “purpose-driven” and employ the sorts of morality that have been developed by faith and thought traditions. The corporate purpose, under BBB’s thinking, should be to respect the dignity and value of each person and to deliver value by serving society (which sounds a lot like UU principles). BBB seeks to be a movement and to attract a multitude of businesses to this approach. Each business would (1) be honest and fair with its customers and suppliers, (2) treat its employees with dignity, (3) be a good corporate citizen, (4) be a guardian for future generations, thinking of the whole, rather than in terms of self-interest, and (5) operate under a purpose that delivers and long-term and sustainable result for society and responsible investors. It all seems a bit pie-in-the-sky, but the presentation featured a panel of academics, who discussed the research that has been done on the efficacy of this sort of new corporate thinking and whether this idea of “purpose” can avoid becoming just another board of director buzzword, like “sustainability” or “corporate social responsibility”. It turns out that there is data that suggests the intuitively sensible point that such companies are more successful over the long-term. However, they also stressed the obvious point that this type of approach to corporate governance cannot succeed in which the leaders are thinking in the extremely short-term way that characterizes most business today. And it seems to me that here will have to be a fundamental change in the definitions of fiduciary duty and investment goals to state that success in investment is not defined by simply earning as much as possible, but by also figuring in the societal costs of the investments that you are making. It was all very inspiring and gave me something to think about. Theses guys are not in America, as they are a pretty small non-profit, but it seems like something that would make an interesting thing for organizations like the UUA to get behind.