Shakespeare created a number of strong, smart female characters, and Helena in All's Well That Ends Well would appear to be one of them. She goes after what she wants - marriage to a nobleman named Bertram - with unflagging determination and no shortage of stratagems. And, as the title indicates, she gets her prize in the end. Considering the nature of that prize, however, you have to wonder how smart she really is.
Bertram is an impudent, spoiled, rich boy who openly disdains lovely Helena, and there's little reason to believe he's had a true change of heart by the final curtain. No wonder this bleak comedy is categorized as one of Shakespeare's problem plays, disliked by a plethora of critics, chief among them, Samuel Johnson.
One of the play's defenders is Harold Bloom who finds justification for Helena's behavior in her childhood and forecasts contentment for her in the long run. Part of this justification springs from Helena's close relationship with Bertram's mother, the Countess of Rossillion, who has served as her foster mother.
With that in mind, it's especially gratifying to report that, under Suzanne Pratt's direction, Molly Moores' resolute portrayal of shrewd Helena and Carol Mason's compassionate, reasoned portrayal of the Countess are the mainstays of Theatre Hopkins' respectable production.
Loren Dunn doesn't distinguish himself as Bertram, but then, we're not supposed to respond to him the way Helena does. As Bertram's duplicitous companion, Parolles, James Gallagher comes across as more of a pompous oaf than a scoundrel. But Laurel Burggraf makes a promising Theatre Hopkins debut as sweet Diana, a young lady who gets an abrupt lesson about men and love from Helena.
Credit also goes to director Pratt for her staging of the final scene. When Helena kisses her once-lost and now-reclaimed husband, the Countess and the King of France look skeptical, and the rest of the cast turn away. It's an unspoken but significant suggestion that all may not truly be well at the end of this All's Well.
Theatre Hopkins performs in the Merrick Barn on the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University. Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2:15 p.m. Sundays, through Nov. 17. Tickets are $12 and $15. Call 410-516-7159.
Major draw
The Abbey Theatre of Dublin's highly acclaimed production of Medea, which opens a sold-out four-performance run at Washington's Kennedy Center tonight, will transfer to Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre next month, according to Jedediah Wheeler, a producer of the show's non-Broadway engagements in the United States and Paris.
The modern-dress production, which won awards in London and Dublin, stars Fiona Shaw and is directed by her frequent collaborator, Deborah Warner. When the show played Boston last month, Ed Siegel of the Boston Globe wrote: "I'm not hedging: This Medea should not be missed." Reviewing it at the Brooklyn Academy of Music a few weeks earlier, the New York Times' Ben Brantley described it as "the most essential ticket of this theater season."
At the Kennedy Center, where it is being presented in the intimate Terrace Theater, the Euripedean tragedy sold out almost immediately. "People are just screaming to get tickets," said a Kennedy Center spokeswoman. If they move quickly, some of those people may be able to catch it in New York, where it will begin a 12-week Broadway engagement Dec. 4-Feb. 14. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at Ticketmaster, 212-307-4100.
A shorter 'Night'
The Repertory Theater of America, a national touring company that moved its headquarters from Texas to Baltimore three years ago, has established a local classical company called the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company.
The company's debut production, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, opens a two-weekend run tomorrow at the Howard County Center for the Arts. According to artistic director Ian Gallanar, the new company will stress "accessibility rather than authenticity." In keeping with that, he has updated the setting of Twelfth Night to a modern, but unspecified, beach resort.
"I think audiences get afraid of Shakespeare because there are so many barriers put between the play and the audience, particularly if you are trying to do an authentic Elizabethan production," Gallanar said. "Our approach is clarity - find the way to make everything that happens in the play as clear as we can to the audience." That approach also includes what he describes as a "liberal" attitude toward cutting. He's hoping for a running time of under two hours for Twelfth Night.
Show times at the Howard County Center, 8510 High Ridge Road, Ellicott City, are 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday, Nov. 15 and 16. Tickets are $13. Call 410-752-3611.
'Son' reviewed
Son of Drakula, former Marylander David Drake's one-man show, which made its world premiere at the Theatre Project last May, opened a limited engagement at New York's Dance Theater Workshop last week. Here's what the critics had to say about Drake's theatrical exploration of family ties possibly stretching all the back to Vlad the Impaler:
"In a dazzling, inventive first act, Mr. Drake recounts his trip to the World Dracula Congress in Transylvania, using vocal acrobatics to bring to life the people he encountered. ... The second act finds him visiting a Croatian family that shares his unusual name, and here his ear begins to fail; the tale becomes meandering. But the first act makes the second forgivable." (Neil Genzlinger, New York Times)
"Long for a solo, the piece wants pruning, and a few of the Serbo-Croat relatives require stronger acting definition, but these are small faults in a work so fresh in its mix of elements, in its discovery of hidden links between seemingly disparate topics." (Michael Feingold, The Village Voice)
"Drake is an engaging performer, offering something like a cross between Spalding Gray and Sandra Bernhard ... But the thrust of the play - his need to connect with his family in order to accept himself - gets buried in an avalanche of minor detail." (Adam Feldman, Broadway.com)