Volpone
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Volpone, or The Fox (in Italian: "Big Fox"), is a comedy by Ben Jonson first produced in 1606, drawing on elements of city comedy, black comedy and animal fable. A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-performed play, and it is among the finest Jacobean comedies.
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[edit] Characters
- Volpone (the "Big Fox") – a greedy, childless Venetian nobleman
- Mosca (the Fly) – his servant
- Voltore (the Vulture) – a lawyer
- Corbaccio (the Carrion Crow) – an avaricious old miser
- Bonario – Corbaccio's son
- Corvino (the Raven) – a merchant
- Celia – Corvino's wife
- Sir Politic Would-Be – ridiculous Englishman. Probably partly based on Sir Henry Wotton, [1]and partly on the traveller, Anthony Sherley.
- Lady Would-Be (the parrot) – English lady and wife of Sir Politic-Would-Be
- Peregrine – another, more sophisticated, English traveller
- Nano – a dwarf, companion of Volpone
- Androgyno – a hermaphrodite, companion of Volpone
- Castrone – a eunuch, companion of Volpone
- The Avocatori – the judges of Venice
[edit] Plot
Volpone, a Venetian gentleman, is pretending to be on his deathbed after a long illness in order to dupe Voltore, Corbaccio and Corvino, who aspire to his fortune. They each arrive in turn, bearing extravagant gifts with the aim of being inscribed as Volpone's heir. Mosca, Volpone's assistant, encourages them, making each of them believe that he has been named in the will, and getting Corbaccio to disinherit his son in favour of Volpone.
Mosca mentions in passing that Corvino has a beautiful wife, Celia, and Volpone goes to see her in the disguise of Scoto the Mountebank. Corvino drives him away, but Volpone is now insistent that he must have Celia for his own. Mosca tells Corvino that Volpone requires sex with a young woman to help revive him, and will be very grateful to whoever provides the lady. Corvino offers Celia.
Just before Corvino and Celia are due to arrive for this tryst to take place, Corbaccio's son Bonario arrives to catch his father in the act of disinheriting him. Mosca ushers him into a sideroom. Volpone is left alone with Celia, and after failing to seduce her with promises of luxurious items and role-playing fantasies, attempts to rape her. Bonario sees this, comes out of hiding and rescues Celia. However, in the ensuing courtroom sequence, the truth is well-buried by the collusion of Mosca, Volpone and all three of the dupes.
Volpone now insists on disguising himself as an officer and having it announced that he has died and left all his wealth to Mosca. This enrages Voltore, Corbaccio and Corvino, and everyone returns to court. Despite Volpone's pleas, Mosca refuses to give up his wealthy new role, and Volpone is forced to reveal all in order to save himself. He, Mosca, Voltore, Corbaccio and Corvino are punished.
This main plot is interspersed with episodes involving the English travellers Sir and Lady Politic Would-Be and Peregrine. Sir Politic constantly talks of plots and his outlandish business plans, while Lady Would-Be annoys Volpone with her ceaseless talking. Mosca co-ordinates a mix-up between them which leaves Peregrine, a more sophisticated traveller, feeling offended. He humiliates Sir Politic by telling him he is to be arrested for sedition, and making him hide inside a giant tortoise shell.
There is a school of thought that, like another of Jonson's famous works The Alchemist, all the action in Volpone takes place over a single 24 hour period.
[edit] Text
The play appeared in quarto in early 1607, printed by George Eld for publisher Thomas Thorpe. The quarto contains Jonson's dedication to Oxford and Cambridge, as well as a great number of commendatory verses, in English and Latin, by fellow-poets such as Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Its next appearance was in the folio of 1616, and the latter, presumably having been subject to Jonson's careful review, forms the basis of most modern editions.
[edit] Performance history
The play premiered at the Globe Theatre in Spring 1606. It was performed by the King's Men, but casting is uncertain. John Lowin may have performed the title role, as he is associated with the role in James Wright's Historia Histrionica (1699). William Gifford hypothesized that Alexander Cooke may have played Lady Would-be. Either that summer or the next, an outbreak of plague closed the London theaters, and the company performed the play at Oxford and Cambridge. Jonson may have added the first act's satire on Pythagoras for these audiences. The play certainly remained in the King's Men repertory throughout the period. It was performed for Charles in 1631, and again at the Cockpit-in-Court in 1637.
After the Restoration, the play enjoyed a lengthy prominence: John Genest records over fifty performances before 1770. When the theaters reopened, the play was owned by the King's Men of Thomas Killigrew; it premiered at Drury Lane in 1663. Michael Mohun played Volpone to Hart's Mosca; Katherine Corey played Celia, and Rebecca Marshal played Lady Would-be. The same cast was seen by Samuel Pepys in 1665.
The play continued current throughout the following century. Richard Steele mentions a performance in a 1709 number of Tatler. Famous eighteenth-century Volpones include James Quin; famous Moscas include Charles Macklin. Colley Cibber played Corvino in his productions; his wife Katherine Shore played Celia, as did Elizabeth Inchbald in a later generation. As with many other Jacobean plays, it had fallen from favor before the end of the century. An updated version by George Colman the Elder failed at Drury Lane in 1771, and the play fell into disuse. Even in the early eighteenth century, critics had complained about the improbability of the fifth act, which was frequently likened to farce, and to Jonson's highly latinate language. By the end of that century, these objections had come to seem insurmountable to producers, and the play survived only in reading.
The play was revived by the Phoenix Society at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1921; W. B. Yeats was among the audience, and he mentions the production approvingly in a letter to Allan Wade. The Birmingham Repertory Theatre staged the play at the Malvern Festival in 1935.
A 1938 production introduced two of the dominant elements of twentieth-century productions: Donald Wolfit and animal imagery. Wolfit's dynamic performance in the title role, repeated several times over the next decades, set the mold for modern interpretations of Volpone: Politic's plot was truncated or eliminated, and Mosca (played in 1938 by Alan Wheatley) relegated to a secondary role.
The play has been staged by a number of famous companies over the decades since. In 1952, George Devine directed Anthony Quayle (Mosca) and Ralph Richardson (Volpone) at the Bristol Old Vic. At the same theater in 1955, Eric Porter played Volpone. In 1968, Tyrone Guthrie's National Theatre production emphasized the beast-fable motif; this production featured stage design by Tanya Moiseiwitsch.
In 1972, the play returned to the Bristol Old Vic, but the most memorable production of the 70s was Peter Hall's for the National Theatre. The production presented Paul Scofield as Volpone, with Ben Kingsley as Mosca and John Gielgud as Sir Politic.
Matthew Warchus received an Olivier Award nomination for his 1995 production at the Royal National Theatre; it featured Michael Gambon and Simon Russell Beale.
[edit] Adaptations
In 1918 the theme of a man faking his death to cozen his friends was taken up by Puccini in the third part of Il Trittico, namely Gianni Schicchi.
Volpone was adapted by Jules Romains and Stefan Zweig in their 1928 production, with the ending changed so that Mosca winds up with Volpone's money.
This version was used by George Antheil in his 1953 opera Volpone.
A more recent operatic version, by composer John Musto and librettist Mark Campbell, premiered in March 2004 at the Barns at Wolf Trap to positive critical notices. Tony Award winner Lisa Hopkins appeared in the piece.
A short-lived 1964 Broadway musical adaptation entitled Foxy moved the play's setting to the Yukon during the gold rush of 1898.
The stage adaptation Sly Fox, by Larry Gelbart, updated the setting from Renaissance Venice to 19th century San Francisco, and changed the tone from satire to farce.
The Honey Pot is a 1967 film by Joseph Mankiewicz based on Volpone, although with a romantic subplot and some more sentimental trappings, with Rex Harrison in the main role, Cliff Robertson as Mosca ("McFly"), and Maggie Smith as the love interest.
In 1988 the film was adapted for Italian cinema by Maurizio Ponzi, with the title Il Volpone. Set in modern Liguria, it features Paolo Villaggio as Ugo Maria Volpone and Enrico Montesano as Mosca.
