Everyman Repertory Theatre's Volpone

Everyman Repertory Theatre presents its final reading of their 'Forgotten Classics of the Stage' series, Ben Jonson's 'Volpone,' on Sunday, September 29th at 2:00 pm, at Pascal Hall, 86 Pascal Ave. in Rockport.

 

Set in Venice Volpone, “the sly fox” is a greedy, rich, childless “magnifico” pretending to be on his deathbed after a long illness to dupe Voltore (“the vulture), Corbaccio (“the raven”) and Corvino (“the crow”), three men who aspire to inherit his fortune.

In their turns, each man arrives at Volpone’s house bearing a luxurious gift, with the intention of having his name inscribed to the will of Volpone as his heir.

Mosca (“the fly”), Volpone’s parasite servant, encourages each of the visitors to believe that he has been named heir to Volpone’s fortune.

 

Then, mayhem reigns.

 

English politician and diarist Samuel Pepys observed after viewing a 1665 production of the play that Volpone was a “most excellent play; the best I ever saw, and well-acted.”

Coincidentally or perhaps in a competitive move, William Shakespeare penned a tragic play about greed and lust which most scholars place “in about 1606” titled Timon of Athens. Timon lavishes his wealth on parasitic companions until he is poor and rejected by them. He then denounces all of mankind and isolates himself in a cave in the wilderness.
 

The same scholars feel strongly that both Volpone and Timon of Athens alternated performances on the same Globe stage in 1606.

In 1976 comedic playwright, Larry Gelbart, most famous as a creator of the iconic television series M*A*S*H, relocated the story of Volpone to San Francisco in his highly successful Broadway stage farce titled Sly Fox featuring George C. Scott as Maxwell J. Fox. The comedy was successfully revived in 1978 and again in 2004.