All's Well That Ends Well
Subject: Quicktake - "All's Well That Ends Well" by Wm. Shakespeare
Date: Insert date and time
Quicktake on ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
The Actors' Shakespeare Project's final offering of the season, the Bard's seldom done "All's Well That Ends Well", directed by the company's Artistic Director and founder, Benjamin Evett, displays their increasingly tight ensemble work. Casting within the company , however, has resulted in two distinctive performers, John Kuntz and Jennie Israel, taking the romantic leads, rather against type. The duo, at odds for 95 percent of the action, is almost impossible to bring together in the closing scene, and as in "Measure for Measure," another dramatic comedy, the result isn't very satisfying. Israel, the company's Associate Artistic Director, played Lady Macbeth for CSC and was effective last fall as Goneril in "King Lear," but, as Helena, comes across rather flat in this lighter part. Kuntz, who played Rich. III in the company's inaugural production, is a believably spoiled young noble, Bertram Count Rossillion, but doesn't project the romantic aura the role requires.. However, the play is rich enough that its array of lesser characters, including LaVache, the family fool, also played by Kuntz, make this a rewarding production.
Two central characters are particularly effective. As the Countess, Bertram's widowed mother, Boston acting legend Paula Plum shows her varied talents, adding more comedy than is usual to the role in scenes with LaVache. Shakespeare & Co.'s Allyn Burrows', who appeared in ASP's "Measure for Measure" as The Duke, and was Kent in "Lear, " makes the most of Capt. Parolles, Bertram's dishonest associate. His comic downfall provides the play's secondary complication, and serves as a foil to Bertram's own dissembling. Award-winning actress Bobbie Steinbach is also entertaining playing aged Lord LaFeu, adviser to both the Countess and the King, and doubling as a noble Widow Capulit in Florence, mother to Ellen Adair's Diana, the object of Bertram's transient affections and the key to the plot. David Gullette from the Poet's Theatre is believable as the King, the cause of the action, who must finally sort out the result. The remaining three of the ensemble of ten actors, who play named parts, members of the military, and various servants, are Paula Langton and Greg Steres, as the noble brothers Dumain and Risher Reddick as the inept Duke of Florence and Rinaldo, the Countess' steward. They keep the show rolling along, manipulating Caleb Wertenbaker's ingenious formal set with minimal furniture and three trunks on wheels which form set pieces and hold many of the costume changes.
This time, ASP has arranged Durrell Hall so that seating is against and on the permanent stage, with the acting area on a painted map on the main floor and partially under the balcony. Live music is provided by fiddler Oisin Conway, who also speaks the epilogue, and pianist Natty Smith who also gets to turn the signs which indicate whether scenes are in Rossillion, Paris, or Florence. Most of the cast sings a mixture of ballads, madrigals, and folk tunes to help with transitions between scenes. There's a particularly effective choral piece before Bertram's assignation which is played up in Durrell's actual balcony. Evett and company have created an effective, entertaining, and understandable production with much to offer. The limitations of the principal characters are implicit in the tale itself, which Shakespeare borrowed from Boccacio, and which he may tried earlier in a lost version entitled "Love's Labor Won."
"All's Well That Ends Well" by Shakespeare, Apr. 20 - May 14
Actors' Shakespeare Project at Durrell Hall, Camb. YMCA
800 Mass. Ave, Camb, 1 (866) 811 - 4111 (TM)
A.S.P.
posted by will at 2:11 PM
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