All's Well That Ends Well
by William Shakespeare
directed by Donald Hicken
March 30 - April 22, 2007
on the Elizabethan Stage at St Mary's
Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm
Sundays at 5pm
Student Matinees April 5, 18, 19 at 10:00am
College Night April 12 at 8:00pm - All Tickets $15.00
An unrepentant Hero and a heroine passionate and calculating. The myth of heroism held under a microscope in one of Shakespeare's most unforgivably neglected plays. Baltimore Shakespeare Festival presents William Shakespeare's Alls Well That Ends Well on the Elizabethan Stage at St. Mary's, opening on March 30th and running through April 22nd. Performances are Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00pm and Sundays at 5:00pm. Additionally there is a college night performance on Thursday April 12th at 8pm and student matinees April 5th, 18th & 19th at 10am. More information and tickets are available at www.baltimoreshakespeare.org or 410.366.8596. Members of the Press are invited to attend the Opening Performance on Friday, March 30th 2007 at 8:00pm.
Baltimore Shakespeare Festival invites the audience into the passionate and unapologetic myth of heroism. All's Well That Ends Well, one of William Shakespeare's most infrequently produced plays, explores Count Rossillion (Bertram), a braggart solider who dreams of military greatness and Helena, an opportunist who wants to elevate her social standing. Helena is dazzled by what Betram is rather than who Betram is and he cannot accept Helena as a wife because of the importance he puts on his social standing.
Helen Hayes Award winning director Donald Hicken sets the play is set in 1814 at the beginning of Bourbon Restoration in France. "During this period, nobility came back into fashion. This is the last time where men went to battle as an expression of honor. This quest for honor motivates Bertram," says director Donald Hicken, "This play is still pertinent to a modern audience because boys are still making war. Although, I do not think, however, this play is an anti or pro war play. It spoofs war. It debunks some of the reasons war is fought."
The roles of Bertram and Helena are being performed by two BSF newcomers John-Michael MacDonald* and Jenny Tibbels Artistic Director of Baltimore's Run of The Mill Theatre. The lying and manipulating Parolles is being performed by Baltimore's master of dark comedy Tony Tsendeas*. The multi talented Richard Picher* & Conrad Feininger* deftly portray Louis XVIII and the clown Lavatch respectively. Several BSF favorites return to the stage at St. Mary's in this production including Dana Whipkey*, Marianne Angelella*, Thomas Lee Brown, JJ Area, Ben Kingsland & Gregory Stuart. BSF also gladly welcomes Susan Rome*, Jean Harrison*, Stephen Lorne Williams*, Stephen Rourke & Diana Cherkas to our stage. The design team includes Liza Davies (Properties), Alexandra Pappas (Lighting) and Norah Worthington (Costumes). Baltimore Shakespeare Festival continues it commitment to the Baltimore community utilizing five interns from Baltimore School for the Arts as actors in this production.
The Baltimore SunCoward, schemer inhabit Shakespeare's 'All's Well'
by J. Wynn Rousuck
April 8, 2007
If Bertram and Helena, the protagonists of Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, had written personal ads, they might have gone something like this:
His: Young French nobleman seeks lady of similar social status for permanent relationship - or, attractive young woman of lower status for a good time. (Please send picture.)
Hers: Physician's daughter, skilled in the healing arts, seeks Bertram - and only Bertram - for matrimony. (Please send engagement ring.)
In other words, Bertram is a cad, and Helena is desperately in love with him. It's a good premise for comedy, but All's Well That Ends Well, currently at the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, is no typical comedy.
One of Shakespeare's so-called "problem plays" (the others are Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida), All's Well is more troubling than comic. And though director Donald Hicken's production accentuates the humor and softens the more disagreeable aspects of the protagonists' personalities, all is not entirely well.
Indeed, smoothing some of Bertram and Helena's sharper edges, as John-Michael MacDonald and Jenny Tibbels' performances effectively do, may win them more empathy, but it also takes a little too much bite out of the play.
Tibbels' Helena is every bit the determined young woman she is supposed to be. When her beloved Bertram heads to the court of France, she follows him.
Using her late father's skills, she cures the ailing French king and persuades him to let her choose her future husband. She then stakes her claim on unwilling Bertram.
Shakespeare didn't make it easy to figure out what she sees in Bertram, and Tibbels' portrayal - while conveying relentlessness - gives little indication of the affectionate or romantic side of Helena's nature.
It helps somewhat that MacDonald's Bertram is primarily young and stubborn, instead of merely mean-spirited. If Tibbels' orphaned Helena has been forced to grow up too fast, MacDonald's Bertram has yet to grow up at all.
A poor judge of human nature, he pals around with cowardly, disreputable Parolles (humorously portrayed as a lazy, pathetic sad sack by Tony Tsendeas). And, demonstrating his immaturity as well as bad judgment, Bertram thinks nothing of expressing defiance after being ordered to marry Helena by the king (played by Richard Pilcher as a just, CEO-style leader).
When the king calls Bertram a "proud scornful boy," the emphasis is on "boy." Determined that this be a marriage in name only, however, Bertram hightails it to Italy to serve as a mercenary soldier. Tsendeas' Parolles is one example of the way Hicken heightens the play's comedy - in this case, by tossing in a dose of slapstick. Posing as Italian enemy forces, Bertram's buddies blindfold the lily-livered braggart and put him in the stocks, represented here by a detached wooden plank, which Tsendeas whirls around with dangerous abandon. Hicken has updated the time period to 1814, the start of the Bourbon Restoration. As he explains in the program, "This may be the last time wealthy personages were expected to see combat as a matter of honor," as well as an era when "military attire reminds us of tin soldiers" (some of which he briefly works into the action).
Distinguishing herself in the supporting cast, Jean Harrison lends a warm, elegant presence to the role of the Countess of Roussillion, Bertram's mother, a woman who also harbors a mother's love toward Helena. Also notable are Diana Cherkas as a young woman who turns the tables on duplicitous Bertram, and Conrad Feininger as Lavatch, the countess' doleful clown, whose role has, regrettably, been abridged here.
The cast also includes seven interns from the Baltimore School for the Arts, where Hicken heads the theater department. In his program notes, the director writes that "like so much of the canon, this play is a teaching play." He brings added meaning to that description by including some of his students, who acquit themselves admirably.
The lesson that All's Well teaches can be disturbing - chiefly, that the ends always justify the means. Hicken's gentle-handed interpretation may be a bit oversimplified, but it makes happily-ever-after seem possible, concluding this problem play on a pleasant note.
The Examiner
Shakespeare Still Genius
By Dan Collins
Apr 4, 2007
The genius of Shakespeare is that he's still relevant even after being dead for nearly 400 years. Take his work "All's Well That Ends Well," now playing at the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival. It's one of the Bard's so-called "problem plays," not quite a comedy or a tragedy, but containing elements of both - much like many of today's popular dramas.
And like "24," "House" and "The Sopranos," the play - set bydirector Donald Hicken in 1814 - features heroes as well as villainy done with virtuous intent. Helena (Jenny Tibbels) is a lower-class beauty who falls in love with Bertram (John-Michael MacDonald), the Count Rossillion, who is interested in sowing wild oats and seeking glory in battle.
To win her man, Helena seeks out the King of France (Richard Pilcher), curing him from a life-threatening illness, using the potions bequeathed to her by her late father, a renowned physician. In exchange, the King grants Helena Bertram's hand in marriage (an interesting bit of role reversal), which is less than happy news to Bertram, who had not envisioned Helena as his wife. Along the way, we meet Parolles (Tony Tsendeas), a poor man's Falstaff who, when he isn't delivering comic rants about virginity or rescuing lost drums, learns that braggarts never prosper and that he himself can change for the better.
As Lafew, Stephen Lorne Williams proves he can forgo the "privileges of antiquity" and bestow a crushing handshake along with some crushing words to Parolles as Lafew knows a knave when he sees one. Diana (Diana Cherkas) knows one too, suffering the slings and arrows of Bertram's verbal assault on her reputation if only to help Helena bag (and bed) her husband.
In typical Shakespeare fashion, all the chief characters join in the play's final act - happily together, though one wonders just how happily as Bertram is deceived into love and Parolles' cowardice is only in remission, but in the moment, all is indeed well.
Kudos to Norah Worthington's costume design efforts, recreating the uniforms and clothing styles of Louis XVIII's era. The production also makes use of a number of teen interns from the Baltimore School for the Arts, including Isaac Dalto as the Duke of Florence, who shows he can bash tin soldiers and burst drums with the finest of thespians.
Baltimore City Paper
On the Louts : Only The Jerks Make This Shakespeare Comedy Worth Revisiting
By Geoffrey Himes
Apr 4, 2007
All's Well That Ends Well is known as one of William Shakespeare's "problem comedies," and while the new production at the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival fails to solve all its problems, director Donald Hicken does make the case that the problems are worth wrestling with.
In the middle of Act II, the king of France (Richard Pilcher), given up for dead after all the doctors in Paris could not heal him, is restored to health by Helena (Jenny Tibbels), the daughter of a brilliant, recently deceased doctor. As a reward, the king has agreed to give her any man in the kingdom as a husband, and she chooses young Bertram (John-Michael MacDonald), the lord of her local district.
MacDonald reacts to this announcement as if he's been slapped hard across the face. With his black velvet coat, square jaw, and crisp baritone voice, he has a noble bearing that might be described as either dignity or arrogance. Even though Helena is a red-headed beauty smart enough to cure a king and romantic enough to shower him in poetry, Bertram can't believe he's being asked to marry a mere commoner to pay off a king's debt.
The amiable smile suddenly disappears from the king's face, and Pilcher stares down this young noble who dares to challenge his authority. In a silent but charged moment, Helena is forgotten as the two men glower at each other, each trying to force the other to his will. Bertram buckles first and agrees to wed Helena, but the petulant youngster swears the king's victory will be a hollow one. He will never consummate his involuntary marriage; instead he will run off to Florence to try his luck with the Italian battlefields and the Italian maidens.
Bertram, in other words, is one of the biggest jerks in the Shakespeare canon. How can such an ass be the male lead in what is supposed to be a romantic comedy? More than that, how can you find romance or comedy in a play dominated by so many jerks?
You have a king who would rather compel an unhappy marriage than have his authority challenged. You have Lavatch, a servant who mocks his employers and extols cuckoldry. You have a widow who is willing to involve her daughter in a seduction plot if the bag of gold is heavy enough. You have French soldiers who rush off to the Italian wars, not caring on which side they fight as long as they get to fight. And, above all, you have Parolles, accurately described by a fellow soldier as "a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality."
To make matters worse, these cynics and weaklings are far more colorful and interesting than the play's handful of romantic idealists: Helena, the widow's daughter Diana, and Bertram's mother, the Countess Rossillion. These virtuous women are as exciting as warm milk and as realistic as plaster saints. No wonder the best performances in this production are in the loutish roles: MacDonald as Bertram, Pilcher as the king, Susan Rome as the widow, and Tony Tsendeas as Parolles.
Parolles parades about the stage like a wannabe emperor in his plume-topped Napoleonic hat and red-tassled belt. By adding his own physical slapstick to Shakespeare's funny lines, Tsendeas makes it clear that his character presumes experiences he never had, wisdom he never earned, and courage he never felt. When he is kidnapped by his fellow soldiers pretending to be the enemy, Parolles' craven willingness to confess every secret he has ever known provides the evening's comic highlight.
Director Hicken is able to create terrific scenes in isolation--Parolles' confession, his tongue-lashing by the elderly Lafew (Stephen Lorne Williams), the widow's haggling with Helena, Bertram's first showdown with the king as well as their later, play-ending standoff--but the director is never able to redress the play's imbalance between its charismatic louts and dullard lovers.
Nor is he able to satisfactorily answer the script's nagging questions: Why does Helena persist in her love of such an unappealing boor? Why does Bertram spurn the entreaties of his mother, the king, and Helena and trust the advice of Parolles? And why, after five acts of disdain for Helena, does Bertram suddenly fall in love with her at the play's end?
Perhaps these questions are unanswerable. That doesn't mean All's Well That Ends Well should never be produced, for it includes some of Shakespeare's best villains and buffoons and some of his sharpest epigrams. "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together," says one French soldier to another. "Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues." If only the good had been as interesting as the ill in this play.
Broadwayworld.com
BSF: "All's Well" Production is Aces
by James Howard
Apr 3, 2007
"Even bad [insert theatre legend name] is better than no [insert theatre legend name]!" So enthused my college theatre professor. Nowhere is that more true than with the works of William Shakespeare. In deed, some of the Bard's less well-received plays are among my personal favorites (Titus Andronicus, chief among them), but even the greats have a clunker or two in their canon. Far be it from lowly old me to grouse about the quality of a Shakespearean script, but All's Well That Ends Well must surely be one of his weakest comedies. That said, in spite of the story, the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival production, which opened last weekend in Hampden is a first-rate production in all aspects. And really, you can get something from anything Shakespeare wrote, right? So, by all means, you should get to this one.
The story can be boiled down to this: Girl loves boy who is way out of her means, so she magically cures the ailing King of France who grants her betrothal rights to any man in the kingdom. Girl picks boy, he rejects her and he joins a foreign army. Boy goes after another girl, longing to take her virginity. First girl fakes death, works in cahoots with second girl, and gets herself pregnant by her unwitting husband. Throw in some jewelry, lots of talk about sex, and you have All's Well That Ends Well. Being that it is a comedy, of course, all actually ends well - boy gets laid, so he's happy; girl gets the man she loves to knock her up, so she's happy. Like a Lifetime movie or a cheesy soap opera plot, this slim excuse of a play features a few subplots. Suffice it to say, there are other things going on, so read a plot synopsis before you go.
Donald Hicken, director of the piece, has wisely chosen to set the play in 19th century aristocratic France to point up the differences between the classes and to bring the themes of obedience, honor and devotion at least closer to our times, which are seriously lacking in all three areas. (In his notes, he also admits that he likes the way the clothes look and that the soldiers remind him of tin soldiers!) Hicken's direction offers a brisk pace, with even the scene changes meticulously blocked, even when the plot nearly stops the thing dead in its tracks. Using a traditional Elizabethan stage set up (designed and constructed by Lewis Shaw and Thomas Lee Brown) he uses spare set pieces (designed by the always reliable and creative Liza Davies) to tell us where we are, and uses the balcony and pillars to suggest a variety of locales as well - very Shakespearean. And he smartly infuses modern staging techniques in his blocking and lighting (designed by Alexandra Pappas) to create excellent stage pictures. Pappas' lighting is very nice, helping the setting and mood subtly without making it noticeable. Adding to the beauty of the production are the delicately feminine gowns of the women and the colorful military garb of the soldiers designed by Norah Worthington. She has clearly done her homework, as the details are magnificent.
The large company of actors is clearly at home in the Shakespearean milieu. Every actor, from non-speaking servants to the leading roles is fully engaged and use body language to communicate much, often filling in the details where William's words are lacking. Included in the cast are seven young actor interns from the Baltimore School of the Arts: Eric Berryman, Morgan Camper, Isaac Dalto, Cameron DelGrosso, Brittani Green, Mary Shock and Cedric Todd. Each not only adds to the sheer magnitude of the production, but each holds their own against a troupe of very experienced older actors. I hope they have learned much from this valuable experience. Mr. Dalto, in fact, has a key scene as the Duke of Florence, where he expresses much boy-like glee at impending battle over his toy battle scene. He was delightful. Mr. DelGrosso also makes a smart impression as a messenger/page. Congratulations, all.
In the main cast, several supporting players do well. J.J. Area and Dana Whipkey are both quite funny in their roles of the Dumaine brothers, soldiers in the war. Both convey a slick, sly cunning as they grin and cajole their way through the play. Susan Rome, in a brief appearance as the Widow, makes the most of her scenes and adds greatly to the fun, especially as she works out a deal for her daughter, who helps our leading lady trick her reluctant husband. And Richard Pilcher makes a wonderfully blustery and commanding King of France. His entrances alone make the show worth attending. Finally, Diana Cherkas as Diana, apple of our hero's eye and co-conspirator to bring him down, works her feminine wiles to great comedic effect. Ms. Cherkas is always a delight to watch (she appears all over town in Shakespearean plays) and is becoming a very respectable Shakespearean actress.
All's Well has three central characters, Helena, the maiden in love, Bertram, the man she loves, and Parolles, a lying scoundrel and friend of Bertram. Tony Tsendeas as Parolles, raises the entire level of quality to an already quality production. Every time he takes the stage, one loses sense of time and place, so comedic and riveting is his performance. His opening monologue on the virtues of losing one's virginity is a riot. His subplot, where his lying schemes are discovered by his fellow soldiers, and they trick him into admitting his deceits, are really the highlight of the play. Tsendeas is a marvel during an extended scene where he is blindfolded and out in the stocks, and must plead for his life. Grounding the character, his face when he realizes he has been out duped is very telling and even a bit sad. But in true Shakespearean comedy tradition, even he turns out well, as the truth has set him free and gained him a measure of respectability.
John-Michael Macdonald as Bertram delivers a fine performance. His dashing looks and ego-filled presence makes it clear why he'd be attractive to the ladies, best pals to the guys, and still arrogant enough to spurn a woman because she is of lower station. He plays both hero and villain well. Finally, as Helena, a character that requires lovelorn behavior, street smarts, a sharp tongue and believability in manipulation, the BSF has struck gold with the lovely and smart Jenny Tibbles. She makes the most of her role, playing to the audience; gaining our confidence and making us root for her, even as she connives her way into her husband's bed. One wonders what she might have done with a full scene where her Helena confronts her husband, who thinks he is sleeping with another woman! Ms. Tibbles is another local artist gaining herself a terrific resume, whether it be onstage or directing or working for various theatre companies around town. We are fortunate to have her here in Charm City!
And so it goes. The Baltimore Shakespeare Festival has made a so-so play into a worthwhile event. Shakespeare's themes may be grand and relevant, but his take on them is lacking. But this production certainly makes up for its shortcomings.
*denotes member Actor's Equity Association