All's Well That Ends Well
Most of Shakespeare's romantic comedies begin with an arranged marriage: the female's father chooses for her. But what if the golden slipper were on the other foot? What if the woman - Helena in All's Well - were free to name her mate with the King's blessing? And what if her intended, rich young Bertram, flat refuses enforced wedlock and would rather go to war than marry beneath his station? In effect, Shakespeare takes a social given of the time and dumps it on its ear. Helena persists; Bertram flees (and becomes a lying womanizer); then she really persists. At the Old Globe, director Darko Tresnjak relocates the play in Victorian times, which allows Linda Cho to dress the cast in cold, formal charcoals, the soldiers in bright red and black. Tresnjak counters the stiff-upper-lip surface with bawdy touches, including a frontal view of Michelangelo's Goliath-sized statue of David upstage (and upstaging all below). As Bertram and Helena, Graham Hamilton and Kimberly Parker Greene are adequate. The fun's in the secondary roles: Jim Winker's crotchety King ("wrapped in dismal thinkings"), Kandis Chappell, Charles Janasz, and music-voiced Celeste Ciulla. Bruce Turk is special as Parolles who, like Helena, becomes a threat to the male-dominated social order. Over the years, audiences and critics have had a "problem" with the play. But I never have. Its perplexities are much more lifelike than most of the happy-enders (how many weddings have you attended where people whisper, "Give it six months" and are being optimistic?). All may be well that ends well, but at the ending of All's Well, Helena and Bertram have only just begun.
Worth a try.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, September 28, 2008
Hours
| Sundays, 8pm |
| Tuesdays, 8pm |
| Wednesdays, 8pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 8pm |