Volpone

By Ben Jonson. Directed by John Murphy. A United Players production. At the Jericho Arts Centre on Friday, April 11. Continues until April 27

This production of Volpone tries so hard to be funny that it almost never is.

There’s one notable exception. In Ben Jonson’s 1606 script, a wealthy, childless man named Volpone pretends he’s dying and tricks people into giving him gold and jewels by promising that, if they win his favour, they will inherit his entire fortune. He falls hard for the wife of one of the men he’s gulling, though, and she rejects his advances. That’s when Volpone sings the blues.

Director John Murphy has given this production the flavour of a Victorian circus, among other things, so when Volpone starts to wail away, an upright piano gets dragged on-stage, a piano man starts to play it, a bearded lady and a dwarf (who is really a child) sing backup, and a harlot joins in on squeezebox. In the pièce de résistance, somebody hangs an electric guitar around Volpone’s neck and the Jacobean-Victorian blues are born. There are other isolated bits that work, too, including a running gag about people getting slapped.

Everything that’s funny is also surprising. There’s not enough of that. Murphy and his cast lard many of the speeches with illustrative movement that’s more distracting than illuminating. Erin Wells, who plays Volpone’s servant Mosca, jigs her way annoyingly though much of her material. And there’s a great deal of yelling. Sebastian Kroon, who plays Corvino, the man Volpone wants to cuckold, hollers all evening. Murphy clearly, and mistakenly, encouraged him to do so. Drew McCreadie, who plays Volpone, is a gifted comic actor and he always feels assured here, but he sometimes hurls himself with kamikaze energy at business that just isn’t clever.

Even with all the yelling, the text is often hard to hear. Wells sometimes speaks more quickly than her articulation can keep up with, and Tara Goerzen, who plays the bearded lady and other characters, is consistently difficult to understand.

Brian Anderson is lightly playful as Sir Politik, husband to one of Volpone’s victims. And Tallulah Winkelman hits a workable combination of frenzy and engagement as a loopy judge.

Sydney Cavanagh’s costumes are a richly textured Victorian treat.

The underlying problem, though, is that Murphy and his crew are too concerned with being clever and not sufficiently concerned with being honest. Even farce needs to be based in some kind of emotional reality.