Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival presents 'All's Well that Ends Well' (second review)

If the phrase “original practices” conjures thoughts of an all-male troupe donning wigs and vamping like second-rate drag queens, fear not. (For that, you have to go next door and catch Shakespeare in Love.) Instead, the process replicates the peripatetic nature of Renaissance theater.

The actors arrive at PSF with lines learned and create a production during a reduced rehearsal period, without a director. They use existing sets (in this case, Steve TenEyck’s handsomely designed Twelfth Night digs) and raid the costume shop for their clothing. The period of creation spans less than a week.

Given the circumstances, I expected something ragtag and interesting. Instead, the result was polished and often tedious.

Too much and not enough

All’s Well That Ends Well presents a convoluted narrative, even by Shakespearean standards. Its main story follows Helena (Emiley Kiser), a common woman who pines for Bertram (Spencer Plachy), the noble son of her benefactress, the Countess of Rossillion (Susan Riley Stevens). The daughter of a renowned physician, Helena possesses a tonic she believes can relieve the dying King of France (Greg Wood) of his various ailments.

The King promises Helena her choice of husband should the balm prove successful. (Should it not? Death.) She selects Bertram, but he’s not exactly a willing mate. He leaves France, vowing never to return until Helena becomes pregnant by him — a seemingly impossible feat, given their unconsummated union. This sets off a tragicomic romp featuring wartime excesses, mistaken identity, faked deaths, bed tricks, and ultimately a happy ending.

Even heavily cut, as it is here, All’s Well retains a fair amount of chaff. An ongoing feud between Parolles (Jim Helsinger), one of Bertram’s confidants, and Lafew (Anthony Lawton), a level-headed courtier, grows tiresome long before it reaches an amicable conclusion. Though Lawton projects an appropriate air of dignity, Helsinger, costumed like a Captain Jack Sparrow impersonator, oversells every joke.

Helena’s adventures on the Italian war front, where she intends to make good on Bertram’s promise through sly deception, quickly turn confusing. The lack of a director’s unifying vision seems most evident here, as characters flit in and out of scenes without much distinction, their purposes ill defined. That the structure of these acts alternate Helena’s escapades with the ongoing Parolles storyline only adds to the muddle — something else that could have been clarified through greater oversight.

"Slick professionalism"

Yet the production's overall effect is slick professionalism. I should probably be grateful for that and expect nothing less from a company of fine actors from Philadelphia and beyond. But I often longed for some of the bawdiness and overstatement common in accounts of performances from Shakespeare’s own era, when actors felt a marrow-deep connection to the parts they played dozens, if not hundreds, of times.

Only Eric Hissom manages to capture this sensibility in his rollicking, ukulele-strumming turn as Lavatch, the court clown. Whenever he takes the stage, levity follows. Wood also turns in a reliably strong performance as the spared King — though if you’ve seen him in one show (or 20), nothing he does here will seem new.

The central trio disappoints. Kiser never fully communicates the all-consuming power of Helena’s love for Bertram, nor does she project the intelligence needed to pull off her complicated scheme to win him in the end. Plachy remains little more than handsome and petulant throughout. Stevens plays the Countess with motherly affection but fails to capture her regal bearing.

Without a sense of growth among these characters, the play’s final resolution, which can be beautiful and moving, lands solidly in the “So what?” column. As I drove home, I wondered how a competent director could have widened the scope of the performances and pulled the drama together. Extreme Shakespeare serves an academic purpose, but I, for one, am happy with the theatrical advances that have come since the play’s premiere.

To read Mark Cofta's review, click here.