<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations . Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations . (December 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson . First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge considered it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature . The play's clever fulfilment of the classical unities and vivid depiction of human folly have made it one of the few Renaissance plays (except the works of Shakespeare) with a continuing life on stage (except for a period of neglect during the Victorian era). </P> <P> The Alchemist premiered 34 years after the first permanent public theatre (The Theatre) opened in London; it is, then, a product of the early maturity of commercial drama in London . Only one of the University Wits who had transformed drama in the Elizabethan period remained alive (this was Thomas Lodge); in the other direction, the last great playwright to flourish before the Interregnum, James Shirley, was already a teenager . The theatres had survived the challenge mounted by the city and religious authorities; plays were a regular feature of life at court and for a great number of Londoners . </P> <P> The venue for which Jonson apparently wrote his play reflects this newly solid acceptance of theatre as a fact of city life . In 1597, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (a.k.a. the King's Men) had been denied permission to use the theatre in Blackfriars as a winter playhouse because of objections from the neighbourhood's influential residents . Some time between 1608 and 1610, the company, now the King's Men, reassumed control of the playhouse, this time without objections . Their delayed premiere on this stage within the city walls, along with royal patronage, marks the ascendance of this company in the London play - world (Gurr, 171). The Alchemist was among the first plays chosen for performance at the theatre . </P>

Short summary of the alchemist by ben jonson