Is ‘All’ Not Well?
Sunday, April 13th by scott malia
A new production of All’s Well That Ends Well received a middling-to-low review. The review notes that the play is one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” and cites the play’s varying tones and characters. Furthermore, the reviewer finds fault with the tone of the production itself, calling the serious parts too bland and humorous parts occasionally too garish. What struck me most about this review is the almost seamless way it mixed criticism of the production with criticism of the play itself. Essentially, for this writer, the play is full of traps and the actors and director fell into many of them.
Since he is near-deified to many, isn’t this reviewer’s complaints about the play kind of, well, blasphemous? Conversely, does Shakespeare have a few clunkers in his repertoire? If so, why perform them? Are we seeing productions of plays like All’s Well That Ends Well simply because of concern over audience fatigue? If Shakespeare aficionados have had more than their fill of indecisive Danish princes or kings who disinherit their daughters, it makes sense that other plays might be explored to show a different side to his writing. Still, are we attempting to make all thirty-something plays into classics?
These questions probably cannot be answered, but they bear asking. Also, what if we look at it from a different perspective? Would a reviewer be quite so hard on a play like All’s Well That Ends Well if he didn’t know who wrote it? In other words, are Shakespeare’s “great” plays and his reputation being used to punish his more idiosyncratic works?
