Welcome to the first of (let's seeeeee onetwothreefourmumblemumble...) eleven previews for the coming season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival: All's Well That Ends Well. Written by William Shakespeare, it will be playing from June 30 until November 1 in the New Theatre. It is the OSF directorial debut of Amanda Dehnert, who has an impressive resume with the Trinity Reportory Company in Rhode Island. Now, obviously there's a mountain of excellent of information out there about this pillar of the canon. I'm not out to reinvent the wheel here, nor am I qualified (or interested, for that matter) in trying to make like a PhD candidate and blow your minds. What I'm offering is a convenient collection of material about the play and the production (as that becomes available), plus a look at the cast and what that might tell us.

One benefit of Shakespeare's plays being so old is that they're freely available in the public domain. A favorite site for text and analysis is Play Shakespeare; you can find their copy of the text here.With a little help from Wikipedia (as of November, 2008) here's a quick summary.

Helena, our female protagonist, serves as a gentlewoman in the household of the Countess of Rossilion. There she has become acquainted (and fallen in love) with Bertram, the Countess' son, who is making preparations to leave for Paris to become a ward of the King of France. Helena has long nursed a secret love for Bertram, despite their class differences. It is revealed that the King is terminally ill of a fistula (to Shakespeare it was a long pipelike ulcer). Helena, whose father was a well-renowned physician, offers to cure him if he will allow her to marry the Lord of her choice - he agrees. Her medicinal knowledge proves fruitful, and she saves the King's life. The King is overjoyed and accedes to her condition, upon curing him, of being granted the husband of her choice. Of course, she chooses the reluctant and unwilling Bertram. She offers him freedom to deny her, but the King is insistent on the marriage as a reward to Helena and Bertram is forced to consent. After their (enforced) wedding, Bertram decides he would rather face death in battle than remain married to Helena, so he steals off to fight in the Italian war developing between the Florentines and the Senoys. While at war, he writes dismissively home to Helena:

"When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband." (III.ii.55-58)

Bertram thinks these things an impossible task. Nevertheless, Helena sets out with a plan to recover her husband.

Back at the war front, the young lords strive to convince Bertram that his ne'er-do-well friend Parolles is a coward. They set up an elaborate ruse to convince Parolles to recover a company drum stolen by the enemy and trick him into believing he has been captured. Parolles, thinking himself begging for his life, readily spills all his army's secrets to his "captors", betraying Bertram ("a foolish idle boy and for all that very ruttish...") in the process. Dishonored and stripped of his title, Parolles returns to France as a beggar. Helena, meanwhile, enlists the aid of Diana, a maiden who has taken Bertram's fancy. Together they execute the bait-and-switch "bed trick" during which Helena successfully gets the Rossillion family ring and sleeps with Bertram as per the conditions in his letter. In the final act, Helena's cunning plot is revealed, and Bertram promises to be a faithful husband to her and "love her dearly, ever, ever dearly." (V.iii.354)

All's Well is a tricky play on several levels. Like last year's Clay Cart, there's a certain moral flexibility that you have to be comfortable with. Bertram is not very sympathetic, treating our heroine with disdain bordering on outright scorn. Helena, meanwhile, accepts his hostility as a challenge worthy of the prize. While feigning death to illicit sympathy is common enough in Shakespeare (see Much Ado About Nothing, for example), the sheer amount of deception, the depth of it, and the cause that it is in service of, can't help but make you think "is it worth it?" For all of that, the writing is what you'd expect and worth your consideration even if the story doesn't thrill you. At least, if things go right!

The Cast

All's Well sports three leads amongst the ensemble: Helena, Bertram, and the Countess. This particular production highlights two young Company players in different places along their career arcs. Danforth Comins, in his sixth season, has already had what can be considered a "breakout" year in 2008, when he headlined Coriolanus - a production I sadly missed, but which garnered near-universal praise. That same year he was an able Cassio in Othello, standing his ground on stage with lions (har har) Dan Donohue and Peter Macon. Prior to that his major contributions at OSF were as Bo in Bus Stop (he was solid if not awe-inspiring) and multiple roles in King John and Richard III. The role of Bertram in All's Well is likely to be played "straight," and Mr. Comins has got good Shakespearian chops to see that through. Expect fine things from him here.

Kjerstine Rose Anderson, as Helena, is having what I expect will be her own breakout year in 2009; she's one of the faces of this production and has a smaller lead role in Servant of Two Masters. This is her third season, with each year showing tremendous growth in the load she has shouldered as well as what she has made of it. Last year, she was charming and light both as Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream and as Liberty in A Comedy of Errors, giving her a year of significant work in the Canon. Along with Christine Albright and Emily Sophia Knapp, Ms. Anderson seems to be at the front of OSF's current bumper crop of young leading ladies.

The Countess is a role that actresses of a certain age can sink their teeth into; such mature actresses as Judi Dench and Peggy Ashcroft have taken to the part in recent years (not at OSF, of course). She's a strong female lead, encouraging Helena's love of her son, Bertram, despite their differences in social standing. She also plays what could be considered a fatherly role in Bertram's life, even delivering a farewell speech to him (not unlike the famous one that Polonius gives to Laertes in Hamlet).

Be thou blest, Bertram; and succeed thy father
In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue
Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness
Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
Under thy own life’s key: be check’d for silence,
But never tax’d for speech. What heaven more will
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord;
’Tis an unseason’d courtier; good my lord,
Advise him. (I.i.24-35)

This year's Countess is portrayed by Dee Maaske, who will forever be endeared to me for her performance of Dotty Otley in Noises Off! a few years back. That said, in her 17 seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival she's likely knocked your socks off somewhere along the way. If you've been to the Festival before, you know (and in all likelihood admire) Ms. Maaske's work, and the thought of her getting such rich material to work with should be an exciting one!

The Production

At this time we don't have a lot to go on regarding the production itself. In this video, director Amanda Dehnert describes a fairytale, European setting and mentions Hans Christian Andersen. Combine that with the promotional poster (seen at the beginning of this preview) and I suspect we're getting a production that will look an awful lot like a traditional Nutcracker holiday production. Unless you live somewhere that uses the Maurice Sendak interpretation, that is, although that would make for an interesting All's Well!

Available Material on the Web

Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Production Page

Wikipedia's entry on All's Well That Ends Well

Play Shakespeare's entry on All's Well That Ends Well