All’s Well That Ends
Well Shakespeare Santa Cruz, 2008
Terry Teachout in 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.
Rachel Fowler
All’s Well That Ends Well
Shakespeare
Shakespeare Santa Cruz
2008
Photo: r.r. jones