All's Well That Ends Well

Content Group

Overview
All's Well That Ends Well, 19th Century

This script is often called a "problem play" because it does not conform to conventional plot or character expectations. The heroine aspires to marry above her social class and succeeds by using her father's medical resources to cure a king who thereupon orders her target aristocrat to marry her. After the wedding he runs off to make war, but she entraps him into impregnating her by substituting herself for a young woman he wishes to debauch. Dazed by this "bed-trick" he accepts her as his wife. Many romantics, like Coleridge, find Helena manipulative and Bertram callow.

However, Helena's determination and resilience match many characteristics of modern women as evoked in the "feminist" plays of Bernard Shaw, in which the "life force" provides women with a psychological drive to procreation that overrides male will, as in Man and Superman. As a result of such role-revisionism, modern performances of the play have increased (see OSF 2009 and RSC 1982), but Bertram's lack of charm still leaves many women unconvinced about the plausibility of Helena's obsession with him, particularly in view of his debasing association with a contemptible rogue called Parolles—though Parolles' misconduct and ultimate humiliation provide some humor. It is a very difficult play for which to predict audience reaction. Shakespeare follows Lope de Vega's specifications that heroines should be socially agile and their lovers inept, but this will not please romantic spectators.

Images
All's Well That Ends Well, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1982
All's Well That Ends Well, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1982
All's Well That Ends Well, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, 2009
All's Well That Ends Well, 19th Century
All's Well That Ends Well, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, 2007
All's Well That Ends Well, Anne B. Warren as Helena, 1786
Bibliography

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Carter, Albert Howard. "In Defense of Bertram." Shakespeare Quarterly 7, no. 1 (Winter 1956): 21-31.

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All's Well That Ends Well at Talkin' Broadway.

Toscano, Michael. Review of All's Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC. Theatermania, September 13, 2010.

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