Ben Jonson Scenes for Two Actors: Volpone and The Alchemist

Your classical scene-study unit has reached comedy, and your teacher wants something that isn’t Shakespeare. Somebody says “Jonson,” and you and your partner nod. Then you open Volpone and find a five-act play full of fake deathbeds, lawyers, and a man pretending to be a mountebank, and no clue where a scene for two people starts.

Jonson is worth the search. His two best comedies are built on con artists, and con artists work in pairs: the master and the servant counting the takings, two crooks screaming at each other in a borrowed house, a greedy knight trying to impress the one man who won’t be fooled. The scenes are fast, rude, and very funny when they’re played straight.

The short version: below are six two-person scenes, three from Volpone and three from The Alchemist. Each one has the line it starts on, the line it ends on, what each character wants, how the words split, and about how long it runs, with a shorter cut where the full scene is long. Every quoted line was copied from the Project Gutenberg text. After the scenes comes the practical part: how to play Jonson so the laughs come from the situation, not from mugging.

Get the same free text as your partner

Both plays are free on Project Gutenberg: Volpone; Or, The Fox, eBook 4039, and The Alchemist, eBook 4081. Both editions come with the same long introduction to Jonson’s life and work, and the Gutenberg text numbers its scenes as 1.1, 2.2, and so on. Scene numbers differ between editions, so find each scene below by its first line.

Our play library also has The Alchemist scene by scene, with every role’s line count. It uses the Standard Ebooks text, which modernizes some spellings (Gutenberg prints Believe ‘t, I will, where our library prints Believ’t). Neither is wrong. Just pick one with your partner before anyone learns a word, so your cues match.

A little history helps you pitch it. The Gutenberg introduction says Volpone was produced in 1605 and The Alchemist in 1610, and it praises their character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature. The Alchemist was first performed in 1610 by the King’s Men, according to Wikipedia’s entry on the play, and its whole plot starts because plague has driven the master of the house out of London. The same introduction says it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor. He wrote these parts knowing what an actor needs.

A note on the times. We counted the spoken words in each scene, stage directions out, and divided by 140 words a minute, the pace our acting scripts to practice page uses. Jonson’s verse runs fast, but comedy needs room for the laugh, so a staged run will usually be longer. For a competition, check the clock: the International Thespian Excellence Awards acting rules define a duet as two players and say it must not exceed five minutes, timed from the first word or acting beat after the slate.

Volpone: three scenes

Volpone is a rich Venetian with no heirs who pretends to be dying, so that men who hope to inherit will shower him with gifts. Mosca is his servant and his partner in the trick. The names are animals: the Gutenberg introduction explains Voltore as the vulture and Corbaccio and Corvino as the big and the little raven, and Mosca is listed as “The Fly” in Wikipedia’s entry on the play. Play the hunger, not the costume.

Volpone and Mosca, Act 1: the morning prayer to gold

This is the opening of the play. It starts on Volpone’s Good morning to the day; and next, my gold: and runs to And let them make me sport., when he sends Mosca off to fetch the dwarf, the eunuch, and the fool.

VOLPONE: Good morning to the day; and next, my gold:
Open the shrine, that I may see my Saint.

Source: Ben Jonson, Volpone, Act 1, Scene 1 (Project Gutenberg eBook 4039).

What each wants: Volpone wants to worship his treasure and hear that he got it cleverly. Mosca wants to be paid for saying so, and he is. His flattery ends with Volpone handing him money (Hold thee, Mosca). The fun is how fast Mosca finishes his master’s sentences: when Volpone says a man with gold shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise, Mosca jumps in with And what he will, sir.

It’s about 575 words, roughly 4 minutes, so it fits a five-minute slot as written. Volpone has about 61% of the words, many of them in the opening speech, and Mosca’s two long speeches come in the second half.

Volpone and Mosca, Act 2: “O, I am wounded!”

Volpone has just been beaten off the street by Corvino, Celia’s husband, while disguised as a mountebank selling medicines under her window. Back home, the bruises are the last thing on his mind. The scene starts on his O, I am wounded! and ends on Mosca’s couplet, And as I prosper, so applaud my art.

VOLPONE: O, I am wounded!

MOSCA: Where, sir?

VOLPONE: Not without;
Those blows were nothing: I could bear them ever.

Source: Ben Jonson, Volpone, Act 2, Scene 2 (Project Gutenberg eBook 4039).

What each wants: Volpone is lovesick and wants Mosca to get him Celia, whatever it takes (Mosca, take my keys). Mosca wants the keys. Watch his aside, the only line in the scene Volpone can’t hear. At about 316 words, just over 2 minutes, with Volpone at 59%, it’s short enough to pair with another piece, and it’s a good first Jonson scene because it has the jokes without the long speeches.

Volpone and Celia, Act 3: “Come, my Celia”

Corvino, hoping to be named Volpone’s heir, has brought his wife to the old man’s bed and shut the door on her as he left with Mosca. The scene starts on her O God, and his good angels! whither, whither, and runs to Volpone’s In vain, the moment before Bonario breaks in. Volpone leaps up from his sickbed and sings her a song, Come, my Celia, let us prove, / While we can, the sports of love, then offers her pearls, diamonds, and a life of pleasure.

What each wants: Volpone wants Celia, and believes every person can be bought. Celia wants to get out with her honor, and when bribes fail he threatens force. Her long plea, which begins If you have ears that will be pierc’d, is the heart of the scene for her. This scene ends in an attempted assault, so agree with your partner and your teacher how you will stage the end before you rehearse it.

The full stretch is about 1,028 words, roughly 7 minutes, and Volpone has 72% of them, song included. For a shorter version, start at Volpone’s Why droops my Celia?, after the first song (a short second song is still in the cut): about 658 words, just under 5 minutes, with Celia’s share up to about 34%.

The Alchemist: three scenes

Lovewit has fled the plague and left his house to his butler, Jeremy, who now calls himself Face. With Subtle, a fake alchemist, and Dol Common, Face runs a con out of the empty house, selling the philosopher’s stone to anyone greedy enough to believe in it.

Face and Subtle, Act 1: the opening quarrel

The play opens mid-fight: Face with his sword drawn, Subtle with a vial, and Dol trying to stop them before the neighbors hear. In the full quarrel Dol has real lines, so as written it’s a three-hander. The two-person stretch runs from Face’s Why, who / Am I, my mungrel? who am I? to Subtle’s Would you be gone now?, and Dol doesn’t speak a word of it.

What each wants: each man wants the other to admit he’d be nothing without him. Face reminds Subtle where he found him, starving at Pie-corner. Subtle reminds Face that he was a butler who sold the dole beer. Face keeps begging Subtle to keep his voice down (Speak lower, rogue.), because the con only works if no one hears, and Subtle only gets louder.

This duet is about 548 words, just under 4 minutes, with Subtle at 56% and Face at 44%, one of the most even splits on this page. If you have a third actor, the full quarrel from Believe ‘t, I will. to Dol’s And take my part, and quit you. is about 1,145 words, roughly 8 minutes, with the words split almost three ways. Subtle’s big speech in the middle, Thou vermin, have I ta’en thee out of dung, is also a monologue in our Jacobean monologues for auditions.

Sir Epicure Mammon and Surly, Act 2: the doubter

Mammon arrives at the house sure that today the stone is finished and he will be rich beyond counting. He has brought his friend Surly, a gambler who doesn’t believe a word of it. The scene starts on Mammon’s Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore and runs to All abstract riddles of our stone., when Face enters dressed as a servant. Face calls one short line from offstage partway through, which anyone can read from the wings.

MAMMON: In eight and twenty days,
I’ll make an old man of fourscore, a child.

SURLY: No doubt; he’s that already.

Source: Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Act 2, Scene 1 (Project Gutenberg eBook 4081).

What each wants: Mammon wants Surly to be dazzled. Surly wants to stay unfooled and to get a laugh at his friend’s expense. The scene is lopsided: about 848 words, roughly 6 minutes, and Mammon has 85% of them. Surly lives on short, dry replies, so it’s a great part for an actor who listens well. For a version well inside five minutes, start at Mammon’s But when you see th’ effects of the Great Medicine and stop at Surly’s Will last ‘gainst worms.: about 419 words, 3 minutes, with Surly up to 26%.

Mammon and Dol Common, Act 4: the lord’s sister

Face has told Mammon that a lord’s sister is staying in the house, and that she falls into a fit if anyone talks divinity. It’s Dol, dressed richly and playing a lady. The scene starts after Face slips out to laugh, on Mammon’s A certain touch, or air, and runs until Face comes back, ending on Mammon’s Or art, her wise and almost-equal servant.

What each wants: Mammon wants to dazzle this lady with his coming fortune and win her. Dol wants to keep him talking, and spending, without ever letting the act slip. Her lines are short and sharp (Nay, oaths are made of the same air, sir.), so the comedy is in how little she has to do to lead him on.

It runs about 883 words, roughly 6 minutes, with Mammon at 80%. For five minutes, stop at Mammon’s Thus will we have it.: about 689 words, just under 5 minutes, with Dol at 17%. Time it out loud, because that cut is tight against a five-minute limit.

Play it straight so the jokes land

Jonson’s comedy is about greed, and greedy people are deadly serious. Mammon isn’t trying to be funny when he plans to buy up the tin and lead of every plumber and pewterer he can find and turn it to gold. He means it, and that’s why the audience laughs. If you play the joke, the joke dies.

• Find what the character is hungry for, and want it more than is reasonable. Volpone’s gold, Mammon’s stone, and Face’s share of the money are all life or death to them.
• Let the doubter win the laugh by doing less. Surly and Dol get their laughs from short replies after long speeches, so say them plainly and on time.
• Play the asides to the audience, not to the floor. Mosca’s aside in Act 2 lets the audience in on the con, and so do Face’s asides in the lead-in to the Act 4 scene.
• Keep the con quiet. In the Face and Subtle quarrel, someone might overhear, and the comedy grows when the characters try to whisper and fail. Jonson keeps the joke going: when Face comes back after the Act 4 duet, his first words tell Mammon he is too loud.

Our guide to comedic timing for actors goes deeper on pauses and the laugh, and for the other great English comedy of manners, see our Restoration comedy scenes for two actors.

Pick up the shared lines

Jonson writes in verse, and he often splits one line of verse between two speakers. The play’s first line of dialogue is shared: Face’s Believe ‘t, I will. and Subtle’s Thy worst. I fart at thee. make one ten-syllable line between them. That’s a signal to come in on the cue with no gap, as if you were finishing your partner’s breath.

At the peak of the full Act 1 quarrel, the two men trade one-word insults, and the verse speeds up with them:

SUBTLE: Cheater!

FACE: Bawd!

SUBTLE: Cow-herd!

FACE: Conjurer!

Source: Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Act 1, Scene 1 (Project Gutenberg eBook 4081).

If either of you drops a beat there, the fight goes slack. Our guide to learning lines in verse has more on line endings and shared lines, and our free script line counter shows who has how many lines in a pasted scene.

Rehearse it before you meet your partner

The long speeches in these scenes are easy to drill alone. The short cues are not: Surly’s one-liners, Mosca’s interruptions, and Dol’s put-downs only work if they land the instant the other person stops. You can’t practice that without someone reading the other part.

In Offbook, upload the scene from your Gutenberg text and pick your part, and realistic voices read the other one, then wait while you say your line before cueing the next. As the video below shows, you can set how fast your partner’s voice talks and add a pause before any line, so you can drill the insult volley at full speed and still leave room for the laugh after Surly’s No doubt; he’s that already. When you know it, hide your own lines and run the scene from memory.

For a free warm-up with no account, our run lines online tool rehearses classic scenes and waits for your line. For a week-by-week plan, see our guide on how to prepare a scene for acting class, and for solo comic speeches, browse our comedic monologues.

Questions actors ask

What is the best Ben Jonson scene for two actors?

For a first try, Face and Subtle’s quarrel in Act 1 of The Alchemist: under 4 minutes, nearly even, and funny from the first line. For a man and a woman, Mammon and Dol in Act 4 or Volpone and Celia in Act 3, cut to fit.

What Volpone scene works for a scene study class?

The opening, Volpone and Mosca with the gold, is a natural choice: about 4 minutes and no other characters. The Act 2 scene that starts O, I am wounded! is shorter and lighter if you need a warm-up piece.

Is there a two-person scene in The Alchemist?

Yes, several. The opening is a three-hander with Dol, but the middle stretch is Face and Subtle alone. Mammon and Surly in Act 2 and Mammon and Dol in Act 4 are true duets, apart from one offstage line from Face in the Surly scene.

Is Ben Jonson Jacobean or Elizabethan?

Both. His early plays date from the 1590s, under Elizabeth I, but Volpone (1605) and The Alchemist (1610) came after James I succeeded Elizabeth, so they’re Jacobean. Our Jacobean monologues guide lists his best solo speeches.

Can I rehearse a Jonson scene without my partner?

Yes. Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and Offbook’s voices read your partner’s lines and wait for yours. You can also listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere, which helps fix Jonson’s quick cues in your ear.