Idaho Shakespeare Festival

Idaho Shakespeare Festival

We went to see the Idaho Shakespeare Festival's All's Well That Ends Well Sunday evening. Compared to previous seasons, when the heat was unpleasant, this was a very nice change. We took the opportunity to eat a picnic in the little park that adjoins the open air theater; we had never noticed this before.

All's Well That Ends Well is one of the few plays that my wife doesn't know an enormous amount about, since she has never taught it in her Shakespeare classes, nor did she study it in grad school. She tells me that it is considered by Shakespeare scholars one of the "problem plays," because it is a bit too dark to qualify as a comedy.

Sorry, but I'm not sure that I agree. I thought it was funny, occasionally a bit adult in its humor (as was common for many of Shakespeare's comedies), and in language that hasn't been obscured by changes in slang over the last four centuries. But I didn't find it particularly dark. I did find myself wondering if the main plot reflects Shakespeare's forced marriage to Anne Hathaway--what would have been called a shotgun wedding some years back. (A longbow wedding?)

Part way through, I found myself noticing the similarity of the main plot to one of the stories in Boccaccio's Decameron--and wondering if Shakespeare and Boccaccio had a common source. But as we went deeper in, it became apparent that Shakespeare had borrowed the story, right down to the amounts of money involved, from Boccaccio.

Sara Bruner plays Helena with great energy and just the right level of almost winking at the audience. The only aspect that I found a bit distracting is that there is something of a framing story with the characters in modern dress--while the bulk of the play is in medieval costume, as a period piece. This was a bit distracting.