All's Well That Ends Well September 17, 2010

Some relationships are tricky, and The Bard sets out to remind us of that inconvenient truth via one of theater's most unconventional heroines, Helena. Fiercely determined to get what she wants (in this case, the almost equally enigmatic Bertram), Helena has quite the bag of tricks, entrapment not least among them. Since 'All's Well That Ends Well' defies easy categorization, it is sometimes called a "problem play." Needless to say, we take issue. True enough, the play deals in the complex currency of life and love. If that's problematic, so too then is it funny, beautiful, even outrageous. Or, as Shakespeare himself puts it, "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together."