All's Well That Ends Well is one of Shakespeare's more mystifying plays. The date of composition is uncertain, but even more so is the meaning. Academic debate still thrives on whether this is dark comedy, related to Measure for Measure, or a sunny whirligig, akin to Twelfth Night. The very heroine, Helena, who stops at nothing to win the unloving and unlovable man she loves, is seen by Hazlitt as having "not one thought or action that ought to bring a blush into her cheek," and, antithetically, by the eminent E.K. Chambers as passing "from dishonor to dishonor," and, in the "degrading" pursuit of Bertram, "trail[ing] her honor in the dust." Certain it is that Bertram is a fool, and that he abhors Helena; can we, then, respect a woman, however plucky and resourceful, who thinks to find happiness with such a one for "his arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls"? By today's standards, scarcely.

But if we consider the story's origins—via Boccaccio and Painter—in ancient folk tales (cf. Cupid and Psyche) about a diligent and intrepid girl earning some mighty husband the tough way, All's Well makes at least historic sense. Yet even with Shakespeare's "modernizing" improvements this Bertram and Helena are harder to take than the Decameron's Beltramo and Giletta, who, thanks to the brief narrative's rapidity and translucency, remain innocent enough archetypes rather than clammily alive, censurable human beings. So a sensible production would push All's Well as far back in time as possible, to make its unpalatable elements take on a mythic disembodiedness. Trevor Nunn, the director of this Royal Shakespeare Company revival, chooses the opposite tack: He updates to vaguely World War I times, which affords him all kinds of nostalgic cutenesses but clashes painfully with the play's language, mores, and inner logic.

This is, however, glossed over by every sort of farcical, romantic, and visually titillating (as in Nunn's Nickleby and Cats) strategy, which obscures the meaning—or meanings—in favor of an extravaganza midway between The Student Prince and Balanchine's shoddy Vienna Waltzes. If this kind of slick nonsense—not to say contresens—is to your taste, All's Well will start, continue, and end well for you. The physical production has a nice blend of meandering and sweep to it,' even if John Gunter's scenery is routine, Lindy Hemming's costuming hit-or-miss, and Robert Bryan's lighting too clever by half. There remains, though, Guy Woolfenden's engaging music, polished albeit undistinguished ensemble acting, and Shakespeare's second-best, and thus still champion, writing.

The acting, alas, is that kind of rote, civilized, accomplished but likewise second-best, British acting that goes down effortlessly but unthrillingly like the better English cuisine: Most actors have fine moments among others that are merely respectable. Standing out from this jolly gelatin are only, for good, Margaret Tyzack's quietly intense Countess and, for ill, Philip Franks's singsongy if not actually dithering Bertram and Harriet Walter's ungainly Hexlena. Ho hum—or fo fum—I smelled the bloodlessness of an English mummery.