Character guide

Face

major

Also known as Jeremy, Neighbour, Captain, Lungs

Face is the mastermind of the operation, the man who greets each mark at the door and tailors the illusion to fit their greed. He is caught between the thrill of the con and the constant risk that his partner Subtle will overreach or that his master will return. His improvisational genius drives the play's escalating comedy, as every new dupe forces him to spin a fresh lie.

Subtle

major

Also known as Doctor, the Doctor

Subtle commands the jargon and theatrical authority that make the con convincing, playing the reclusive scholar while Face handles the front door. His vanity and professional pride constantly threaten the partnership, since he resents taking orders from a mere servant. As the operation's engine room, he embodies the play's satire of those who mistake bombast for wisdom.

Dol Common

major

Also known as Dol, Madam Dol, Dorothy, Mistress Dorothy

Dol is the third pillar of the scheme, deployed as bait, distraction, or exotic attraction depending on the mark. She chafes at being ordered around by Subtle and Face, and her scenes with Sir Epicure Mammon show a woman who can match any man's wit while being treated as property. Her versatility keeps the fraud alive when a single performance could unravel everything.

Sir Epicure Mammon

major

Also known as Mammon, Sir Mammon, Epicure

Mammon arrives at the house convinced he is about to possess the philosopher's stone, and his fantasies of luxury pour out in some of the play's most extravagant poetry. He courts Dol Common with promises of diamonds and empires, mistaking her performance for genuine nobility. His boundless greed makes him the perfect mark and the play's most vivid emblem of appetite divorced from reason.

Abel Drugger

supporting

Also known as Drugger, Abel

Drugger is the most innocent visitor to the house, a small tradesman whose modest ambitions make him easy prey for Subtle's fabricated horoscopes and mystical prescriptions. He genuinely believes in the alchemists' powers and returns with gifts and gratitude rather than suspicion. His gullibility measures the con's reach, showing that it catches not only the grandiose but the humble.

Ananias

supporting

Also known as the Brethren

Ananias represents the Puritan brethren who have invested in Subtle's scheme, and he bristles at the doctor's profane language while eagerly pursuing the profits. His catchphrase refusals — balking at 'Christmas' as 'Christ-tide' — expose the gap between his professed piety and his material desires. He and his elder Tribulation show how the con ensnares even those who believe themselves morally superior.

Kastril

supporting

Also known as the Kastrils

Kastril arrives at Lovewit's house eager to purchase lessons in swearing, gaming, and the fashionable violence of a London gallant, dragging his sister Dame Pliant along as a bargaining chip. His bluster is comic and dangerous in equal measure: he threatens to 'maul' his sister into obedience one moment and defers to Subtle's astrological pronouncements the next. His hunger to be seen as a gentleman makes him the perfect mark for the alchemists' promises of Spanish countesses and dueling instruction.

Dame Pliant

supporting

Dame Pliant is a rich widow newly arrived in London under her brother Kastril's heavy-handed protection, and her inheritance makes her the target of suitors ranging from Face to a fabricated Spanish count. She is docile to the point of being bullied, yet her quiet protests — she 'shall never brook a Spaniard' — hint at a will that others keep overriding. Her passivity and her money together form the hinge on which the con men's marriage plots turn through the middle of the play.

Pertinax Surly

supporting

Also known as Surly

Surly moves through the play as the resident skeptic, needling Sir Epicure Mammon's raptures about the philosopher's stone with dry asides about waterworks and Pict-hatch vestals. He refuses to be gulled, declaring 'your stone cannot transmute me,' and his contempt for credulity makes him both the sharpest observer and the most isolated figure in the house. His determination to expose the fraud — even by disguise — sets him on a collision course with Subtle and Face that drives the play's central contest.

Dapper

supporting

Dapper comes to Subtle's chamber hoping to improve his fortune, and his vanity and gambling habit make him easy prey for the fairy-queen ruse. Blindfolded, kneeling, and addressed as 'nephew' by Dol in her fairy regalia, he surrenders his small inheritance and his dignity in exchange for a familiar spirit and promises of Fairyland acres. His credulous delight — 'I cannot speak for joy' — is one of the play's funniest and cruelest portraits of how greed makes willing fools.

Lovewit

supporting

Lovewit has been away from London during the plague, trusting his servant Face to keep the house, and his unexpected homecoming in the final movement throws the con men's world into chaos. He is less outraged than amused by what he finds — cracked pots, smoked walls, and a widow already half-wooed — and his pragmatism about recovering what he can makes him a surprisingly flexible moral arbiter. His arrival forces every schemer in the play to suddenly reckon with the real owner of the ground they have been standing on.

Don Diego

minor

Also known as Don, Diego

A Spanish gentleman who becomes involved in the schemes.

Queen of Fairy

minor

Also known as Fairy

A fictional queen used by Face to deceive Dapper.

Officers

minor

Law enforcement who raid the house at the play's climax.

Neighbour

minor

A local resident who reports suspicious activity to Lovewit.