All's Well That Ends Well, and: Cymbeline (review)

This season, The Shakespeare Theatre took on quite a challenge in presenting All's Well That Ends Well and Cymbeline, two plays proven to be particularly difficult for contemporary audiences. The action of both often leaves those unfamiliar with the plays scratching their heads in confusion. Neither work is easily classifiable, hovering somewhere between comedy and tragedy (and, in the case of Cymbeline, with a bit of history added for good measure) and ultimately consigned to that indistinct genre often referred to—problematically—as the "problem play." Directors Michael Kahn and Rebecca Bayla Taichman took different paths in their efforts to make their respective productions more accessible, but, unfortunately, only one came close to succeeding.

Some of the blame can be laid upon the plays themselves: there are, after all, reasons why these are not the most popular Shakespearean plays. In the case of All's Well, audiences often find it difficult to empathize with the protagonist. Why would an intelligent woman, educated in a respected trade by her father and independent of his influence, fasten her hopes on a man who not only rejects and humiliates her but whose admirable qualities, if he has any at all, are imperceptible? An additional conundrum is why Bertram, who so despised the idea of marriage to Helena that he ran off to the wars, experiences an instantaneous reversal after learning that he was tricked into impregnating her. The usual explanations—that love is blind and persistence rewarded—fail to convince.

Michael Kahn's conception attempted to rationalize the situation by setting the play in the years just prior to World War I. In theory, this made sense: it was a time when women's educational and employment opportunities expanded, the suffragist movement was gaining ground, and, with women's greater independence and social visibility, the nature of courtship itself was changing, so why wouldn't a woman like Helena go after the man she wants? But the problem of Bertram remains. In a brief essay in Asides, the company's publication, Kahn suggested that the focus of his production is war and, through the experience of war, the education of Bertram, who transforms into a man of honor.

That seemed like wishful thinking in performance. Tony Roach's Bertram was uniformly bland, whether he was rejecting Helena's love, baiting a surly Parolles, or seducing Diana, and there was little perceptible change when, in the end, he accepted his wife and child. Regrettably, this was not the only performance to fall flat. Marsha Mason's one-note Countess of Rossillion expressed concern by sighing heavily, wrinkling her brow, shaking her head, and wringing her hands. As...