(His style is much the same no matter the material.) Rather, she builds on social dance of the period, the late 1920s, to tell the story she’s chosen to highlight. For pretty, there are restless Satie-like piano études by Paul Shilton.īut actually, she’s not very interested in steps, as Fosse so distinctively was. The updating of the period - which from Michelle Bohn’s Edwardian costumes appears to be World War I - is just enough to provide the actors with recognizable social situations (a funeral, a farewell) that make the verse feel purposeful instead of just pretty. This is achieved less by rethinking motivations than by burrowing into the language, far richer than I imagined. That you want the best for both of them - and even for the poor fop (Rylan Wilkie) - makes the conflicts more compelling.Ī subtler transformation has turned the countess (Seana McKenna, superb) and the king (Ben Carlson, likewise) from stock dotards into complex characters. Hill) draws on the anguish, verging on rage, that is the other side of a crush. Bertram (Jordin Hall) isn’t frivolous on the brink of manhood, he’s terrified of being trapped by his past. Bertram’s mother, a recently widowed countess, retails Polonius-like pearls of wisdom a fop soldier gets a Malvolio-like comeuppance and the dying King of France is magically rescued from apparent death like 32 other characters in the canon.īut with vibrantly detailed performances under the direction of Scott Wentworth, the Stratford production turns the problems into assets.
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Indeed, “All’s Well” often comes off as a Shakespearean supercut.