All’s Well That Ends Well Shakespeare Santa Cruz, 2008
Terry Teachout – The Wall Street Journal
…I was just as impressed by All’s Well That Ends Well in part because it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the equally pleasing production of that notoriously hard-to-stage “problem play” that I saw last month at Shakespeare & Company, my favorite New England summer festival. Unlike Tina Packer, whose staging emphasized the play’s lyrical and farcical aspects, Tim Ocel has given us a taut, dark All’s Well whose characters are cloaked in dour Victorian black. At first I was disconcerted by the high seriousness of his approach, but by evening’s end I’d bought it, not least because of the distinctive interpretations of three secondary roles: Allen Gilmore plays Parolles, the butt of Shakespeare’s brutal humor, not as a bird-brained fop but as a brusque, well-spoken coward, while Larry Paulsen and Stephen Caffrey are cracker-crisp as the First and Second Lords. I like to laugh more at All’s Well, but I’m not arguing, just commenting.
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Rachel Fowler
All’s Well That Ends Well
Shakespeare
Shakespeare Santa Cruz
2008
Photo: r.r. jones