The cast of All’s Well That Ends Well, 2025. (Photo: Rich Soublet II.)
By Sandi Masori
SAN DIEGO— Summer is here! And that means Shakespeare at The Old Globe. This year’s offering is All’s Well That Ends Well. If you haven’t been to one of The Globe’s Shakespeare plays, you may wonder what’s the connection between the show and the season. Well, simply, The Globe has an outdoor theater where it stages the Shakespeare plays.
Since it’s outdoors, the set is minimal, with some scaffolding and a simple chair or table coming up from the trap door/ elevator in the floor.
It can be a mixed bag when seeing performances of The Bard’s plays. Some actors get so caught up in the language that they “do Shakespeare” rather than embody their characters. The best actors are able to make the audience forget about the old English and bring them into the story instead. In this performance we saw both.
One of the things I love about the Shakespeare productions at The Globe is the humor injected into it. Director Peter Francis James mixes anachronistic dress with historical costumes, and surprising pop culture references, like the Macarena dance in the opening or the “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” sing-along in the end, or the costumes of the Florentian people looking suspiciously similar to the grape stomping episode of I Love Lucy– or for that matter The Widow of Florence’s (Alma Cuervo) uncanny resemblance to Lucy herself in that episode.
This comedy is set in France and Florence in a medieval time. Gentlewoman Helena (Ismenia Mendes) is in love with Bertram (Gabriel Brown), a count who has no interest in her whatsoever. His mother, Countess of Roussillon (Mary Lou Rosato) really likes Helena, who was raised in her household, and would love her as a daughter-in-law.
Maiden Helena was left some proprietary medicines by her late doctor father and uses it to restore the ailing king (Tom Nelis) back to health. But she does it only on the condition that he then allow her to pick the husband of her choosing and compel the man to marry her. The king agrees and forces the unwilling Bertram into marriage. After the forced wedding, Bertram runs away to join the army and avoid sleeping with his wife.
He sends his wife a letter that he will only accept the marriage if she can both get his family’s ring from him and become pregnant by him, which he has no intention of doing, and clearly would be impossible with him away in the army. Clever Helena concocts a scheme to trick him into fulfilling both of those conditions. Chaos ensues.
There are some really phenomenal stand-out actors in this show. Rosario is impressive as the countess, and Nelis flawless as the king. Arthur Hanket embodies his role of Lord Lafew so well he absolutely lights up the stage every time he steps onto it. His French accent is so good that we were wondering if the actor is French himself. But a quick Google search showed him to hail from Virginia so no, not French.
Other standouts include Erick Lindsey as Rinaldo (the countess’ steward), Angeline “Ajay” Pawaan as Diana (the widow’s daughter), Madi Goff as gender-bending Lord Dee (a captain in the French army), and Barzin Akhaven as the traitorous Parolles.
For those who are intimidated by Shakespearean plays, this is an easy entry-level show. It’s great for audiences of all ages and plays through July 6.
*
Associate Editor Sandi Masori is a theater and restaurant reviewer for San Diego Jewish World