A problem comedy, a late romance, and a history play were the most notable Shakespeare offerings in town during the spring and summer of 1983. The RSC's All's Well packed them in at the usually hard-luck Martin Beck, an outpost of Broadway on a block dominated by the tenements of Hell's Kitchen. …

At least one auditor at a preview of the Royal Shakespeare Company's heralded production of All's Well That Ends Well (which opened at the Martin Beck on April 13th) found himself recalling Chekhov's annoyance at Stanislavsky's persistence in introducing bird calls into the exterior scenes of his plays. This reaction was not really irrelevant, for the artfully arranged cooings and twitterings that seemed to greet the ear whenever the scene shifted to Rossillion suggest more than one might expect about the tone and style of this production. A Chekhovian hint was, in fact, intended, the director, Trevor Nunn (of Nickleby and Cats fame), having begun with the idea of "a 19th-century or early 20th-century world, a house from Chekhov's Seagull' in the country and a belle époque exuberance when the action moves to Paris" (quoted in the 19 April 1982 New York Times). Moreover, the obsessive attention to such evocative detail, supportive of Nunn's reading—e.g., that the Countess is not an elegant aristocrat but a member of the landed gentry, whose baggy sweater tells us that she does a good deal of her own gardening, getting her hair quite unstuck in the process—was at once this production's glory and its curse.

"Surrender to the romance," the slogan on the newspaper advertisements invited us, and we did, especially when the panels that delineated the gentle, gray, closed-in world of Rossillion slid back to reveal the full set (designed by John Gunter), a grand, open evocation of Crystal-Palace architecture in the form of a white metal and glass conservatory cum railroad station, which easily converted into a behind-the-front-lines bistro and various other locations. And when the Paris action began with the elder Dumaine—clearly having just leaped from his Nieuport bi-plane to deliver a message to the King—arriving on stage, splendid in puttees, goggles, silk scarf, and leather flying jacket, we were only at the beginning of a parade of costumer's delights and scenic ingenuities of a sort that few recent Shakespearean productions can have equaled. But finally, it was these effects that we waited for. Whether the Italian uniforms would surpass in nostalgic charm those of the French became the critical question. So delightfully whimsical were these military maneuvers that we would hardly have been surprised, and certainly not offended, if Snoopy had fluttered over the stage, his doghouse trailing its inevitable plume of smoke, vowing vengeance on the Red Baron. But inevitably these scenic and directorial treats drew us away from the darker elements of the play.

The sterile world of All's Well, the betterment of which remains in doubt after the snaring of Bertram by Helena, was not made clear by this decorative production in which the wicked satire that the fairy tale is interfused with was turned to pleasant foolery and the hard questions Shakespeare raises were submerged. There was nothing to make one question whether all does indeed end well, except perhaps for the two dancers in silhouette who waltzed in the middle of the dimly-lit stage before going their separate ways prior to the commencement of the elegiac first scene.

Philip Franks solved the problem of Bertram's scoundrelly behavior by looking very young and playing with the misplaced assurance of impetuous youth. His thin body, his round boyish face, his short haircut (with unsubdued cowlick), bis rushed delivery, his eager gestures, his slightly awkward stances projected a character of forgivable adolescent shallowness. Why Harriet Walter as Helena would follow him all over Europe was made comprehensible by her own slightly gawky characterization. With her long face and tall figure, her percussive movements, her sudden vocal attacks, and her quick-changing emotions, she established a comedic effect at the beginning that was never altogether lost.

As the mother to them both, Margaret Tyzack took everything very seriously indeed. Her earnest and compassionate Countess contrasted directly with Stephen Moore's Parolles, a smiling, jovial sportsman with massive strawberry-blond sideburns. The tall, ruddy-faced Moore, with his physical agility and wide vocal range, created an affable gladhander out of Bertram's cowardly and delusive comrade in arms. Geoffrey Hutchings made Lavache, clownish servant to the Countess, into a wry north-countryman whose body had been bent by deformity into a rigid right angle. As the King of France, John Franklyn-Robbins had a habit of dropping to one knee for an intimate chat with someone in the corner of a crowded stage, a posture that suggested that he was rather born to sue than to command. Admittedly, his Edwardian attire prevented him from establishing much regal authority to begin with. Nor was it Deirdra Morris' fault that her Diana was rendered unintelligible by the discrepancy between the bawdy French song she was given to sing for the soldiers in Florence and the spotless reputation she had to defend for the sake of both her family's honor and the play's denouement.