Of all the plays of the Shakspearian collection that are not actually banished from the stage, as for instance Pericles, or the three parts of Henry VI., not one is so little familiar to the public, through the medium of theatrical representation, as All's Well that Ends Well. If we turn to the records of dramatic doings for the last 60 years, we find that the revivals of this play have taken place at long intervals, and that the "runs" have only been for a few nights.

A perusal of All's Well that Ends Well will show, at a glance, that its unfrequent production is not to be attributed to any unjust neglect, but lies in the nature of the play itself. In the first place, the plot is indelicate, even beyond the limits usually conceded to Elizabethan dramatists, although these are allowed a pretty open field for the display of their eccentricities. If a young lady were to ask a gentleman to give her some notion of it, the latter would be driven at once to a nonplus, unless he took refuge in the evasive reply that it resembled the episode of Angelo and Mariana, in Measure for Measure; a reply which, after all, bears a strong affinity to the answer of the Cambridge youth in the immortal "Essay on Pluck," who, when questioned as to the material of the walls of Babylon, told the examiner that it was the same on one side as the other. If this reply, bad as it is, would not suffice, we can see no other course open, but a bold digression on the state of the weather.

In the next place, with the single exception of Parolles—a poltroon who will bear no comparison with Falstaff—there is not one of the dramatis personae who offers any temptation to the actor. The hero, Bertram, is one of the most uninteresting and despicable scoundrels that ever trod the boards of a stage, perhaps more despicable than the case required. In Boccaccio's story of Giletta of Narbonne (Day 3, Novel 9), from which the plot is obviously derived, though it seems through an English medium, Bertram is entirely free from those details of business with which Shakespeare has taken so much trouble to decorate him. Boccaccio bears the impression of a libertine lord, with a feudal abhorrence of a mésalliance, but of the paltry sinner who, in the presence of the King, goes on boggling from lie to lie, he has not had the slightest notion. Dr. Johnson, rather an obsolete critic on the works of Shakspeare, has shown remarkable acumen in tracing throughout the piece the villanies of Bertram, whom he pursues with the vigilance of an old Bow-street officer, and we think few readers will be dissatisfied with his summary. "I cannot," says the good Doctor, "reconcile my heart to Bertram;—a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who marries Helen as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate; when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness."

Helena, indeed, is a charming character. The sense of her inferiority to Bertram, whom she has loved from childhood, and her earnestness in winning him, notwithstanding so many obstacles, are beautifully portrayed, while some of the speeches put into her mouth are equal to anything which can be found in the whole compass of our rich dramatic literature. Nothing, for instance, can be more exquisite than the following, of which the first three lines have passed into the mass of ordinary Shaksperian quotations:—

                It were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so far above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere;
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart, too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour;
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics.

The character of the Countess, Bertram's mother, who can value the virtue of Helena, in despite of the difference of rank between them, is an admirable support to that of the young and devoted girl, and is without prototype in Boccaccio. Here the departure from the original story is productive of the best results; but, at the risk of being deemed presumptuous, we cannot help thinking that in the conclusion of the tale the Italian is more pathetic than the Englishman. The fifth act of All's Well that Ends Well is terribly huddled together, with little or no regard to the exhibition of individual character, and the personages are disposed of in the most commonplace manner possible; whereas in Boccaccio's novel, Giletta, with her twin children in her arms, suddenly appears before her husband, while he is giving a festival to his friends, and, his nature being far from ungenerous, he is struck with contrition. This is a striking picture, and leaves a much more pleasing impression than the reform of the English Bertram, who is half led, half driven, into virtue. The Shaksperian zealot, who will defend the play through right and wrong, would no doubt find a ready answer, by showing that such a Bertram as Shakspeare drew was incapable of all spontaneous goodness whatever; but this would be merely taking advantage of what seems to us the original sin of the whole piece. Beautiful as they are to the reader, even the characters of Helena and the Countess are not such as come out strongly on the stage. They merely reach the level of the calmly interesting.

At any theatre besides Sadler's Wells, we should be surprised to see a revival of All's Well that Ends Well, but the Islington establishment is a sort of museum for the exhibition of dramatic curiosities, and we have no more right to be astounded at finding some Elizabethan crudity within its precincts than at finding a Buddhist idol in a missionary collection. That the piece is by Shakspeare, and that the piece is rare, is in itself a sufficient recommendation to the manager, who is sure that a number of English literati will pay him a visit, just as the head-master of Westminster School is sure that Terence will attract the "Old Westminsters." There is the further recommendation in All's Well that Ends Well, that Parolles, whose episode stands quite apart from Boccaccio's tale, affords Mr. Phelps an opportunity of displaying that comic humour which has, of late, been brought forward almost as a new talent. By his strong, sharp delineation of the poltroonery of Parolles, and that abject servility which succeeds empty vaunting, he maintains an interest in an otherwise weak piece, and commands incessant roars of laughter. As the plot of the play is of such a ticklish nature, we should in justice observe, that by making the production of the ring the sole condition named in Bertram's letter, and by other judicious alterations, the offensive peculiarities are kept so far in the background that nothing is left to shock the ordinary spectator, though, at the same time, we cannot help remarking that these sacrifices to delicacy weaken the real motives of the action.

The mise en scène is in the best taste, as is usual at this establishment, and the applause of the audience, which was bestowed on the revival of the piece last night, showed that the manager's exertions had not been in vain.

PRODUCTION:

Henry Irving • St. George's Hall • 1895

BACKGROUND:

Irving's staging of All's Well That Ends Well with the Irving Dramatic Club in 1895 failed to win favor with the two prominent critics William Archer and George Bernard Shaw. Both objected strenuously to the director's use of an abridged text. Archer wrote that the play "had been so carefully bowdlerized … that the story would scarcely have been comprehensible to any one who did not know it beforehand." Similarly, Shaw, who deprecated Irving's striving after scenic effects, wrote that "the whole play was vivisected, and the fragments mutilated, for the sake of accessories which were in every particular silly and ridiculous." The central performances in this production were also the subject of negative criticism. While Archer approved of Olive Kennett's portrayal of Helena and Len Heinekey's Countess, Shaw found both renderings to have been without merit. The critics were in agreement, however, that the male performances were undistinguished, with Shaw judging that "Mr. Lewin-Mannering did not for any instant make it possible to believe that Parolles was a real person to him."

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