Theatre
Michael Portillo - Nothing like a dame
Published 15 March 2004
Theatre - Judi Dench makes a less popular comedy a pleasure, writes Michael Portillo
All's Well That Ends Well
Gielgud Theatre, London W1
Why, when the curtain came down on the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of All's Well That Ends Well starring Dame Judi Dench, was the applause lukewarm? I sensed disappointment, especially among those who had thought themselves lucky to get a ticket late on, after favourable reviews had already appeared. Largely, the problem is the play, not the performance. During the interval, I sampled the audience (with no pretence of statistical accuracy) and found that, even among the highly educated group I spoke to, no one had seen the play before. I had gone to the theatre thinking I knew it, but found I did not. So our ignorance may have been to blame, too.
It's a very odd so-called comedy. As a reward for curing him of a seemingly fatal disease, the King of France allows Helena, the daughter of a famous physician, to choose a husband. She picks Bertram, and the king forces him to marry her against his wishes. It's true that he has some unpleasantly snobbish objections to her, but so far I'm with the guy all the way in resisting the attempt to force him into sexual slavery. He refuses even to sleep with her and leaves the country.
My sympathies remain firmly with him when the scheming little hussy tracks him down, tricks him into having sex and parades around claiming that she's having his baby. The play "ends well" only in the sense that her deplorable duplicity succeeds. And get this: it's Bertram's reputation that is destroyed, just because, while on his travels, he tries to select for himself a girl that he does want to sleep with. He is humiliated and gets saddled with a wife and a child not of his choosing.
I'm sorry to say that Claudie Blakley's performance as Helena hardened my male heart further. I couldn't find any reason to sympathise with her, and her voice grated - she seemed to strain and her cadences were repetitive. Jamie Glover as Bertram was good-looking but wholly bland in a part that might have been full of moods. Bertram's an arrogant young man who is wronged by his king, becomes a war hero, is betrayed by his closest male friend and duped by two girls, and ends up dismally resigned to his fate. That's a lot to get your teeth into, but Glover's incisors were never really engaged. Among the Florentine women he encounters in exile, Jane Maud was strong as the widow; but the actresses playing her daughter Diana (whom Bertram wants to bed) and her companions seemed ill at ease with the Bard.
Luckily, Guy Henry as Bertram's male friend lifted the evening. Parolles is a sort of Falstaff, boastful and cowardly, but the comedy requires him to be unmasked late in the play. Henry made that work well: he was always funny, but didn't overdo the character's absurdity at the outset. Indeed, so effortlessly did Henry dominate the stage that Parolles always seemed a more attractive character than Bertram. Oh dear.
Gary Waldhorn's king was another excellent performance, once the director, Gregory Doran, let him stand up. Admittedly, the king is sick at first, but did he have to squat motionless on the stage during his very long early scene with Helena? It got things off to a slow start. Stephen Brimson Lewis's set didn't help. It's attractive enough, with a series of square perspex arches leading the eye to a rear screen that carries a hint of wintry trees. The scenery looked as though it might evolve in interesting ways, but in fact the only variety was provided by chandeliers that sometimes descended and were sometimes lit. The set's lugubrious colour was echoed in Deirdre Clancy's costumes. They were rich in texture but very dark - though, within that constraint, Waldhorn and Dench were allowed stunning outfits for the later scenes.
What of Dame Judi? Unsurprisingly, she was excellent. Her diction was magnificent and her deep voice caressed the poetry, making each syllable count and the meaning of every line clear. She attracted all eyes. Her movement was graceful and dignified. She was first on stage, and the audience leant forward, prepared to be borne away. But her character, the Countess Rossillion, becomes less important as the play progresses. In the second half, Dench is not much in evidence. Nor does she have many funny lines. There is little scope for the famous elongated vowels with which she customarily dispenses disdain. We found her funny whenever we could, but we knew this wasn't a role for which she would always be remembered. It added to the feeling of anticlimax.
I am being unfair. All's Well is not often performed because it's not very popular, and the reasons for that become apparent when someone is brave enough to stage it. We should thank the RSC for trying. Judi Dench in an unfulfilling role is better than most people's Lady Macbeth, and Guy Henry's performance brought real pleasure. We were disappointed because our expectations were too high. Keep them under control and you'll enjoy one of Shakespeare's lesser masterpieces.
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