REVIEW: 'All's Well' with Tresnjak-helmed Shakespeare comedy

By PAM KRAGEN - Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 2, 2008 12:15 PM PDT ∞

Above (left to right): Bruce Turk, Graham Hamilton and Charles Janasz; below: Globe associate artist James R. Winker and Kimberly Parker Green in the Old Globe’s Summer Shakespeare Festival production of "All’s Well That Ends Well, directed by Darko Tresnjak, playing in the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre through Sept. 28 in nightly rotation with "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor." (Courtesy photo by Craig Schwartz)

Darko Tresnjak doesn't do anything easy.

Since he first arrived at the Old Globe in 2002, Tresnjak has directed one "impossible" Shakespeare play after another with stellar and often award-winning results. And he's done it once again this month with "All's Well That Ends Well."

Most playgoers at the Globe's Summer Shakespeare Festival have probably never seen "All's Well," which is running in repertory with two other Shakespeare plays. "All's Well" is rarely ever produced because of its somewhat strange mix of darkness and light, its cynical look at love and its dated ideas. But that only makes the challenge more exciting for Tresnjak (who, besides directing "All's Well," also oversees the Shakespeare festival and is resident artistic director of the Globe).

As he did with "Pericles," "Titus Andronicus," "Two Noble Kinsmen," "A Winter's Tale" and "Hamlet," Tresnjak uses bright, colorful imagery, bursts of wicked humor, beautiful scene painting and a superb cast to tell an easily accessible and thoroughly entertaining love story for all ages.

Although billed as a comedy, there's not a lot to laugh about in "All's Well." Except for the usual Shakespearean bits of bawdy, below-the-belt humor (which Tresnjak accentuates hilariously with some famous Florentine statuary), the story's fairly serious.

Helena, the orphaned daughter of a prominent French doctor, is in love with a man well above her station ---- Bertram, the son of Countess Rossillion, who took Helena in as a ward when she was a child. When Helena uses her father's potions to cure France's dying king, he agrees to grant Helena's wish to marry any man in the kingdom. She chooses Bertram, but Bertram is so angered by the forced wedding, he flees to Italy immediately after the nuptials to fight for the Duke of Florence, vowing never to return until Helena can accomplish the impossible task of obtaining his ring and bearing his child. Undaunted, Helena fakes her death and secretly follows her new husband to Italy, where she conspires with the local village women to accomplish the impossible.

Forced marriage and a sneak pregnancy aren't exactly modern feminist ideas, but Tresnjak has chosen a wonderful and smart actress in Kimberly Parker Green, who makes Helena a sympathetic, gentle character seemingly driven only by love. And Graham Hamilton, as Bertram, honestly portrays the indignity you'd expect from a young count trapped into a sudden union.

Festival veteran Kandis Chappell plays the Countess Rossillion with a noble serenity and grace that brings a weight to all her scenes, and James R. Winker, as the kindly King of France, adds warmth to the some of the play's chillier moments.

Still, the most entertaining part of the play is the character of Parolles, a pompous dandy played marvelously by festival regular Bruce Turk. Whenever the play's momentum slows, Turk struts peacocklike onto the stage, and the audience roars.

Tresnjak sprinkles sight gags liberally throughout the play, finding light moments in unexpected places. His imagery in Parolles' "virgin" speech, later blown to gigantic proportions in the play's second act, is a merry bit of trickery. And the gags involving the Countess's self-adoring servant Lavatch (joyously played by Eric Hoffman) also add a lot of levity to some quieter scenes.

"All's Well" is sumptuously designed with lavish 19th-century period costumes by Linda Cho and a stately two-story set by Ralph Funicello (this year closed in from behind, markedly reducing the ambient animal noise from the nearby San Diego Zoo).

The play runs three hours, but feels an hour shorter, thanks to Tresnjak's eye for humor and detail and the easy flow of the dialogue (which has so much non-rhyming prose, it feels like contemporary speech).

"All's Well" alternates on the Globe's outdoor Festival stage with "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor." All three employ the same set and 27-member cast, but each has a different stage director. While I'm a fan of "Romeo" and "Merry Wives," I'm a bigger fan of Darko, and my money is always on the Shakespeare play that he chooses to direct each summer ---- no matter how "impossible" other directors may have found it in the past.

"All's Well That Ends Well"

When: 8 p.m. July 8, 11, 15, 18, 24 and 31; Aug. 3, 6, 9, 12, 14, 20, 24 and 27; Sept. 4, 9, 17, 21 and 26

Where: Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, Old Globe complex, Balboa Park, San Diego

Tickets: $29-$64

Phone: (619) 234-5623

Web: theoldglobe.org

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