All's Well that Ends Well, Shakespeare in the Park, 6/16/11
First, a word about my approach to these reviews. Though I am (putatively at least) a Shakespeare scholar, I don't want to approach these pieces in too scholarly a manner. I am sure that my familiarity with scholarship will inform my writing, but, like Shakespeare's, my writing is really for the masses. Also, I am sure I will often veer between performance review and musing about the play. Since this is not a professional review, I think that's okay. That being said....
I was nervous going into the Public Theater's new production of
All's Well that Ends Well in Central Park because this is the one Shakespeare play I hated upon reading, and it's thanks to Bertram's character. However, the production is free, and my family motto is, "If it's free, it's for me," so I had to give it a go.
The good news is that this production of the play is well done and entertaining. The actors even manage to inject some welcome humor in to one of Shakespeare's less comedic comedies. The bad news is that the production could not, for me, overcome Betram's horribleness, but I don't think any production ever really could, at least not for a contemporary audience. Perhaps more disappointing is that I can't see that this production even really tried to do it. In some ways, his character crystallizes the disconnect between early modern mores and our own that directors must struggle with.
Bertram is so problematic because he, by our standards, is a complete tool. He rejects Helena in a humiliating way, even after the King offers to ennoble her to make her his social equal. He then runs off to war, where he tries to seduce a virtuous young woman, Diana. He later lies about this seduction when his antics come to light back home at the French court; he then finds out that due to a "bed trick," he'd slept with Helena, not Diana. He then acquiesces to staying with Helena, hence the "good" ending the title alludes to.
The title of the play suggests that Shakespeare was aware of how vexing the happy ending union between Helena and Bertam is. I believe that early modern audiences would have considered Bertram a tool ("an arrant knave," perhaps), but less because of his treatment of women and more because in rejecting Helena, he is rejecting his King's command to marry her. Since the French King is is liege lord, Bertram is bound to obey him by marrying Helena. His rejection of Helena is posited by the play not just as a rejection of a worthy woman, but as a rejection of duty and honor.
Though Bertram tries to argue with the King (also problematic behavior), he does marry Helena, but then he disobeys the King in another way by abandoning her and running off to the war in Italy, which he has already been deemed too young to serve in. His subsequent misadventures in Italy and rejection of his cowardly friend Parolles, whom the play implies is a bad influence on the young Bertram, are perhaps meant to show that he grows up enough to become worthy of Helena's love. Except nothing Bertram does or says at the end of the play demonstrates any growth; by the time Helena is revealed as his true partner from the bed trick, he seems agreeable to staying with her, but doesn't have much to say about it. Perhaps this is for the best. At least Helena is married and pregnant, and how many marriages in the French court were for love, anyway? Right?
RIGHT??? The play's title betrays anxiety about this ending, or maybe it is simply Shakespeare's way of shrugging it off. In any event, he never seemed interested in portraying healthy marriages in his plays.
The structural and ideological problems of the play aside, Daniel Sullivan staging does a nice job in presenting the play in a clean, understandable manner. The staging is set in the 1920's, which allows for pretty costumes, though I couldn't see that it added much else to the audience's understanding of the play. The stage consisted of a open-air balcony built in the middle, which allowed the military action in Italy to take the form of a camp at the back of the stage while many of the scenes were played closer to the audience. (Note: I suck at describing staging--forgive me.) This neatly solved the issue of having two distinct settings without adding a lot of scenery. I left having enjoyed the play, and the beautiful night in the Park, but with no new insights into the play. For a Shakespeare in the Park production, entertainment comes first, so Sullivan likely achieved what he set out for in directing the play, but I wish more thought could have been put into how to decrese Bertraim's tool quotient.
The actors (who are performing this in repertory with
Measure for Measure) acquitted themselves well. The female characters in this play are especially strong. Tonya Pinkins, who played the Countess, did an excellent job of playing a warm mother figure for Helena; the audience wants to cheer when she takes Helena's side over that of her son, Bertram. Diane Davis is memorable in the small role of the virtuous-yet-feisty Diana, who agrees to the bed trick and helps Helena to pull it off. Also good in a small role is Dakin Matthews as LeFew. Reg Rogers, as Parolles, the most broadly comedic character in the play, seems to have wandered in from a different production. He made me laugh, but his vocal mannerisms grated after a while--especially since the other performances were more naturalistic.
Andre Holland, a charming young actor, does the best he can with the material. His Bertram does come across as callow enough to reject the love of Helena in order to be a swaggering soldier and ladies man, but the play never gives him enough of a chance to show an evolution from that boy into a man worthy of his wife's love; his lying about his dalliance with Diana in the final scene of the play destroys any chance of that. The play is almost over at that point, and there is no time to fall in love with Helena--whom he never shares much stage time with.
Helena's journey is that of a poor orphan shaping her own destiny, and it is really the story of the play, making her love of Bertram almost incidental. She could have loved anyone--a fact that I think few actors playing him could overcome. The play never tells us why she loves him in particular, even when the King offers her the pick of France's eligible bachelors, and though Holland is attractive and charming, his performance doesn't overcome this problem. Annie Parisse fares better with the role of Helena. She is humble, witty, angry, and even haughty when the play calls for it. She comes across as believably wily enough to come up with the means of getting the King to allow her her choice of husband as well as with the bed trick.
She is the driving force of the play, taking her own destiny into her hands as much as any Shakespeare heroine ever does. In fact, she manipulates Bertram, who she knows has no feelings for her, into the position of having to reject her at all. This either makes her an awesome proto-feminist who shapes of her own destiny or a pathetic fool in unrequited love with a man who is not nearly worthy enough of her. I am inclined to see her as the latter, though I appreciate that she is not a passive character. In fact, her unrequited love is, finally, what makes this story relatable to a contemporary audience. We all know women who have loved men who aren't good enough for them--we may even have been those women. So while I find Helena's love of Bertram deplorable, I don't find it unbelievable, in part thanks to Parisse's down-to-earth approach to the role, which allows her to show anger towards Bertram even while scheming to win him.
Perhaps Shakespeare's plays really do hold a mirror up to nature, even for today's audiences. Maybe we should not expect a feminist agenda from this or any other Shakespeare play, but rather to be shown how people in love really act. Therefore, all the women who
swore by
He's Just Not That Into You a few years ago ought to stop by Central Park this summer for a refresher course because I don't think any viewer can respond with unqualified happiness to Bertram's staying with Helena.
