All's Well That Ends Well (Vol. 26) | Russell Fraser and Philip Brockbank (essay date 1985)
Russell Fraser and Philip Brockbank (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: An excerpt from The New Cambridge Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 28-34.
[In the following excerpt, Russell Fraser gives a chronological survey of All's Well That Ends Well on the stage; Philip Brockbank further discusses productions of the play from 1967 to 1980.]
Stage history
In the seventeenth century, Jonsonian comedy was in, Shakespearean comedy was out, and All's Well That Ends Well failed to get a hearing. 'No man', said Charles Gildon [in The Life of Betterton, 1710], 'can allow any of Shakespear's comedies, except the Merry Wifes of Windsor.' Subsequent auditors have been less severe, but All's Well has remained an unpopular play in the theatre.
In the eighteenth century, it received only 51 performances in the London theatre, as against 274 performances for As You Like It...
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