"The Alchemist" by Ben Jonson is a comedy first performed in 1610. When a plague forces a London gentleman to flee the city, his scheming butler transforms the empty house into a den of fraud. Teaming with a conman and a prostitute, he preys on the greed and ambitions of eager victims—a gambling clerk, a wealthy nobleman seeking the philosopher's stone, and religious zealots hoping to turn metal into gold. As deceptions multiply and schemes collide, the swindlers' elaborate house of cards grows dangerously unstable. (This is an automatically generated summary.)