Town Players To Stage Shakespeare’s

‘All’s Well That Ends Well’

What if Prince Charming thought Cinderella was too low-class to marry?

All’s Well That Ends Well, opening at The Little Theatre in Newtown on July 11, will be The Town Players’ fifth foray into the comic world of Shakespeare. Considered one of his “problem comedies,” the play is what director Ruth Anne Baumgartner calls “a fairy tale for real people.”

The play contains some very funny scenes, including two where characters speak a nonsense language and one of Shakespeare’s great comic characters, but its central thread is a romance whose heroine must plot her way through obstacles and suffering before she wins her happy ending.

In All’s Well, Shakespeare brings the world of fairy tales down to earth. Young, bright and beautiful Helena, daughter of a physician, cures the French king of a fatal illness; her reward is marriage to the man of her choice. She chooses Bertram, a young Count she has known all her life.

Bertram is offended at the thought of marrying a commoner, however. He weds Helena but immediately goes off to foreign wars, swearing he will never consummate the marriage until she does two impossible things: gets from him a ring he never takes off, and bear his child.

We may shake our heads at her determination to have this spoiled and arrogant man, but how she gets him shows a nimble mind, a determined soul, and a loving heart. Shakespeare wrote this play in the midst of his great tragedies, and this tale of love in a fallen world also offers serious philosophical questions for a thinking audience.

A number of the players are residents of greater Newtown: Douglas E. Miller plays the King of France; Keegan Finlayson is Lord Dumain the elder, a gentleman who decides to test his mettle in the wars between Florence and Siena, accompanied by Steve Kennedy as another young French lord. Carole Holick plays both a French lady and a Florentine sight-seer. Pamela Meister is a Widow of Florence who helps Helena in her stratagem to win Bertram.

Also in the cast of 16 are Town Players favorites: Leslie Van Etten Broatch as the hero’s mother; Aaron Kaplan as the hero, Bertram; Elise Bochinski as the long-suffering Helena; Matthieu Regney as Lord Dumain the younger; Rob Pawlikowski as the parasitic buffoon Parolles; Bob Jurgens playing both the Duke of Florence and a gentleman soldier; and George Lang as the old French Lord Lafeu.

The company welcomes newcomers Jeremy Funke as the Countess’ Fool Lavache; Amanda B. Goodman as Bertram’s Florence crush, Diana; and Mike Grenier in a number of small but interesting roles including Rinaldo the Steward.

The production is being directed by Ruth Anne Baumgartner of Fairfield, who has been directing plays of this period and slightly later for Town Players since 1994. Last year she directed the Restoration comedy The Country Wife.

Alexander Kulcsar of Fairfield has designed a set that accommodates the play’s three major settings –a French country estate, the king’s court in Paris, and Florence – all at the same time.

Lighting is designed by Rob Pawlikowski. Pam Meister of Newtown is producer of the play, and Pamela Lynn Henry of Sandy Hook is stage manager.

The production will be embellished by period dancing choreographed by Leonia Python and Renaissance songs sung by Amanda B. Goodman and accompanied by Douglas E. Miller.

All’s Well That Ends Well opens July 11 at The Little Theatre, on Orchard Hill Road (off Route 25) in Newtown. Performances will continue on Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 pm through August 2, with one Sunday matinee on July 27 at 2.

Ticket donation is $12 for all evening shows, and $10 for the matinee. For reservations or directions call 270-9144.