All's Well That Ends Well at Shakespeare & Co
Tina Packer Offers a Daringly Different Production of this Problem Play
By: Larry Murray - Jun 29, 2008
Nigel Gore/Lavache, Elizabeth Ingram/Countess of Rossillion, Jason Asprey/Bertram, Dennis Krausnick/Lafew, Kristin Villanueva/Helena, Kevin O'Donnell/Parolles, Douglas Seldin/A Drummer Boy, Timothy Douglas/King of France, Peter Davenport/Amor Dumaine, Alexander Sovronsky/Domaine Soldat, Ginya Ness/Reynalda, Rondrell McCorick/Duke of Florence, Morganne Davies/Mariana, Brittany Morgan/Diana, Grace Trull/Violenta, Mike Allen Moreno and Andy Talen/Soldiers
All's well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare, Tina Packer, Director, Susan Zeeman Rogers, Sert Designer, Jacquueline Firkins, Costume ADesigner, Les Dickert, Lighting Designer, Susan Dibble, Choreographer, Bill Barclay, Composer, Ryan Winkles, Fight Director, Michael Pfeiffer, Sound Engineer, Margaret Jansen, Voice Coach, Gina Kaufman, Assistant Director, Chris Thielking, Asst. Lighting Designer, Diane Healy, Stage Manager. 3 Hours. Through August 31, 2008.
"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together."
This line from the play sums up its essence, good and bad together. Shakespeare & Company tackled it a decade ago, when they were at The Mount, and the wonderful Elizabeth Aspenlieder played the wily Helena. In the current production the vivacious Kristin Villanueva takes this role, and delivers a knockout performance.
Over the summer All's Well That Ends Well will receive a dozen major productions in the USA, while classics such as Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummers Night Dream will be done ten times as often. It is not as popular and the problem comes, Packer states in her program notes, not in the play's first half, but the second.
"It feels like he took his time writing the first half but threw the second half together in a day. In the denouement, there are plots from no less than five other of his plays," writes Packer in her program notes.
There are other problems to overcome as well. In the play it is clear that Helena, a plain born servant, is head over heels in love with Bertram, the Count of Rossillion. What is not made clear is that in Shakespeare's day the two were barely 14 or 15 years old, about the same age as Romeo and Juliet, and acted more like children than adults, though there certainly was no prolonged adolescence in those days. If these roles were more properly age cast, with performers even younger than Zach Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens from High School Musical playing the roles, the dialog, situations and course of the action would ring more authentic and true, thereby making more sense.
Jason Asprey looks far too mature to be the immature Bertram, whose poor behavior in undermining the King's wishes can only be the result of unthinking youth. When he goes off to war rather than marry Helena, he does so in part to become more of a man, though his self-indulgent immature self remains.
In theater, the suspension of disbelief is critical to the success of the actor's craft. But no amount of acting can take ten or fifteen years off a clearly mature actor's face so that the illusion of youth, and the logic of the plot rings true. The problem of AWTEW is as much in the difficulty of finding and casting actors who are age appropriate to the part as with the script itself. Only youngsters could behave as badly as so many of the characters in this play, though audiences of all ages are eternally transfixed by the sort of virginity, fidelity and trickery that Shakespeare made famous.
As to adding music to the staging itself, director Tina Packer points out that this work already had one song in it, and that three to five musicians always were part of the plays in Elizabethan times, often creating the storms, church bells and other special effects that the stories required. While we do not have the exact music (except in a few rare cases) we can be sure that if there were musicians, they were utilized as a resource by the playwrights.
Thus in Packer's current iteration of All's Well, we have quite a few songs, mostly delivered by the world-weary troubadour character Lavache, acted and sung by Nigel Gore. While his impersonation of a contemporary singer is excellent, even delightfully eccentric, some of his notes strayed a bit from the accompanying instruments. Of course not all singers are actors, nor all actors Pavarotti or Bono.
Perhaps that is why so many performers today depend on special effects and displays of athleticism, cleavage and skin in the delivery of a song. One is easily distracted during All's Well as microphones spin down from the ceiling, and eight other musicians fill out the arrangements, sometimes making them into full production numbers. Various members of the cast join in, and once in a while large groups of the cast break out in dance. The only things missing are a disco ball, spandex and sparkles.
The comedy in the work was mined, too. Even without the slamming doors, one could feel the impact of Charles Morey's The Ladies Man on this production. This was good fun, and often broke the monotony of the endless couplets being exchanged, sometimes with passion, sometimes as if being read from a TelePrompter. The diction of the cast was, as with all of Packer's presentations, excellent, and the actors were competent throughout, albeit at times lacking in passion.
As noted earlier, Kristin Villaneuva was absolutely superb as Helena, investing her character with great concentration, physicality and a sublime delivery. Her energy level overwhelmed the underplayed Bertram, played by Jason Asprey. Of course, Helena uses her wits and one of Shakespeare's favorite devices, coincidence, to great effect.
Elizabeth Ingram as the Countess of Rossillion was touching in all the right places, and one of the few characters one developed the feeling of knowing and liking a great deal. Ginya Ness as Reynalda was able to win over our hearts with just a few lines and gestures, so tidy and focused was her acting.
If there was anyone on stage that was possibly miscast it was Kevin O'Donnell as Parolles, a friend of Bertrams, and a would-be courtier. Don't get me wrong, his performance was memorable. Parolles ("words," in Italian) used every gay cliche that has ever existed in his performance as a sniveling, snaky and supercilious would-be courtier. He scampers about adorned with bright silk scarves (as the text suggests), and earns his laughs as a foppish fool and cowardly braggart. Of course he has his comeuppance and downfall, but gives the audience quite a few fits of laughter in the process. It is an effective performance. So what if he chewed up the scenery in the process.
When unmasked in the second act - or unwigged, actually, - he becomes a whole different person. I believe that he would have made a more physically appropriate Bertram since his face, hidden for most of the play behind fake moustaches and wigs, is actually innocent and boyish. He could easily be cast as a teen with better effect.
The costumes, lighting and scenery worked well with the production, though the person manning the ropes could use a little more practice so that the rising and falling chandelier during scene changes does not look as if it escaped from Phantom of the Opera.
All's Well runs just under three hours with the added music, and relies more on trickery than character development for its story to advance. The plot is pretty ludicrous. Girl wants boy. Girl gets boy. Boy runs away. Girl runs away. Hanky panky and deceptions. Girl gets boy. Boy finally accepts girl.
All's Well includes the famous bed "trick" as one of its devices - an act of sexual entrapment Shakespeare stole directly from Giovanni Boccaccio's compendium of bawdy tales "The Decameron." The convoluted tale plods along, focusing on the treachery of man, proving that nothing is quite as it seems, and in the end, everything is usually straightened out and everyone might even live happily ever after.
Packer has waved her magic wand and produced a fresh take on an old tale. Alls Well That Ends Well will forever be a problem play, but the fact that she has invested it with a new vision is an impressive achievement that makes it worth seeing.
Plays in repertory through August 31 in the Founder's Theatre at Shakespeare & Company.
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