All's Well That Ends Well
by William Shakespeare
Atlanta Shakespeare Company (New American Shakespeare Tavern)
(Notes written in December, Year 2)
Fran tells me scholars refer to this as a Problem Play, but you wouldn't know it from watching the Shakespeare Tavern production. Director Jeff Watkins more or less stiff-arms the Problem and plunges right into the Play.
That isn't to say there are no, um, difficulties with the production or with the text. Casting is uneven, a Tavern tradition, and some of the dialog in the rather unfamiliar play doesn't entirely get across. Watkins told the audience, in his preshow speech, that one character's lines should offend the Religious Right (into which he enigmatically lumped Puritans and Roman Catholics), but on reflection I can't say which character he might have meant. And it's hard to rationalize the choices several characters make to resolve the action.
The week after we saw the show, a letter in the Atlanta newspaper revealed why the lobby signage and the curtain speech included such a strong warning about the words. It seems an audience was disturbed by a family of cutups who didn't approve of the relentless sexual references in the early part of the show. As the adults walked out of their orchestra seats, they waved a flock of children out of the balcony too. By the time of our performance, the management had posted notices about "lascivious" and "poetic" language. There was some, too.
As I saw it, the strongest performances were those of Bill Griffith as the King of France, Maurice Ralston as Parolles, and Marc McPherson as the clown Lavache. Melanie Colvert, as Helena, did well; her voice sounded forced in the early scenes but easier later on. (Believe me, I mean the following in a completely positive way: She looked remarkably healthy for a medieval lady.) Ralston has the gift of vocal contrast (loud/quiet, harsh/soft), a gift that McPherson may share but neither wanted nor needed that evening; his Lavache sounded at all times like a bugle, and by that I do not mean a trumpet playing bugle calls but a bugle playing bugle calls.
If you have never seen a show at the tavern, it's worth going even if what they have up is not so hard-charging as this All's Well. The company made an enjoyable evening out of what could have turned into a study piece.
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All's Well