Director Andrew Hilton has conjured a scintillating interpretation of this tragi-comedy, with individual performances lighting up another fine night at the Tobacco Factory.
The critic E M W Tillyard, writing in 1950, declared, “All’s Well That Ends Well has rich muscular poetry, sexual frankness and, at its heart, a young disadvantaged woman determined to choose her own destiny, sexually and romantically, at any cost.” It is this sense of female empowerment that gives the play a contemporary feel.
Set in the mid-nineteenth century, Helena, the orphaned daughter of an eminent doctor, has grown up in the home of the Countess Rossillion. She has developed a passionate affection for the Countess’s son Bertram, a callow youth who is called to fight for the King of France in Italy during the Franco-Austrian war. “There is no living, none, if Bertram be away.”
With only one thing on her mind, Helena seizes her chance to determine her future when she miraculously cures the ailing king of his fistula. In return she is granted the husband of her choice from amongst the King’s wards. Thus Bertram finds himself manoeuvered into marriage against his will. Fleeing the scene with the perfect cover of a war to fight, Bertram sets Helena a hard bargain whereby he will only recognise her as his true wife if she performs two seemingly impossible tasks.
Helena sets out to prove she can be more than a match for him. While holding her unimpeached vision of him intact, and by buying help from one of Bertram’s intended lovers, she seeks a cathartic change in her reluctant husband.
There was tremendous pace about this performance. The multiple entrances afforded by the theatre in the round at the Tobacco Factory were used to maximum effect.
The focus of the play centres on the relationship between Helena (Eleanor Yates) and Bertram (Craig Fuller). While sometimes a little soft in voice, given that sometimes her back was turned, Yates none-the-less gave the role the quiet determination it required. Fuller had huge stage presence and excelled as Bertram the young snob, the opportunist lover, and later a man in emotional redemption. Yates’ and Fuller’s portrayal of a threatened relationship was always real enough to command the night.
With Paul Currier literally filling the boots of the braggart and cowardly soldier Parolles, Julia Hills very watchable as the Countess of Rossilion and Christopher Bianchi effusing gravitas as the King of France, these plus tremendous support from the rest of a cast on top of its form made for a very entertaining evening.
This Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory production of All’s Well That Ends Well was just that, a terrific performance cheered at its conclusion by an enthusiastic full house. Strongly recommended. ★★★★★ Simon Bishop 6th April 2016
Photos by Mark Douet
Hamlet and All’s Well That Ends Well will be played in repertoire from Thu 28 – Sat 30 April.
