Summary 
Elegant production, directed with astute maturity, is driven by a luminous lead performance of a beautiful young orphan in love with a nobleman beyond her social status. Complemented by the beautiful singing from Lavatch of Shakespeare's contemporaneous sonnets, the production is enhanced with lush 1860s costuming, original music, and a realistic vision of the story. Complex drama, thoughtfully and intelligently presented.
Design
Directed by Barbara Gaines. Set by Michael Philippi. Costumes by Michael Krass. Lights by Robert Christen. Sound by Kurt Kellenberger. Original songs and music by Alaric Jans. Choreography by Harrison McEldowney.
Cast
Linda Kimbrough (Countess of Rossillion), Timothy Gregory (Bertram), James Harms (Lafew), Lia D. Mortensen (Helena), Larry Yando (Parolles), Timothy Kane (Servant to Bertram/Duke of Florence/Violenta), Patrick Clear (King of France), Nick Fletcher (Lord George Dumaine), Ian Christopher (Lord Edward Dumaine), Ronald Keaton (Lavatch), Alyson Green (Diana).
Analysis
Barbara Gaines begins her elegant production of All's Well That Ends Well with the funeral of the Count of Rossillion - a sarcophagus upstage bears the effigy of the late Count - and continues an undercurrent of melancholy and emotional ache throughout. The production, updated to the early 1860s, opens with a gentle snowfall as a Chorus-like Lavatch sings sadly from Shakespeare's 97th sonnet: "how like a winter hath my absence been/From thee." The petite and primly beautiful Helena watches from downstage as the Countess and Bertram mourn together upstage, and she gives Bertram a lingering look of wistful passion before delivering her opening soliloquy. When the soldiers arrive, the dashing Bertram also consoles Helena, giving her an embrace that borders on the intimate and hints at deeper feelings on the verge of blossoming. But he departs with a swagger, and Helena cries out and begins to rush after him, then collapses with love-loss at a corner of the stage.
Gaines' production, a highly realistic and plausible romance, soars with Lia Mortensen's performance at its center, and Mortensen imbues the diminutive Helena with a glowing inner strength and resolve that endears. Her passion for the handsome noble Bertram is not without returned feelings, and her determination to win his hand in marriage - blocked by his nobility and her lower social rank - makes her a sympathetic heroine, with her motivations coming so achingly from the heart. Attractive in both appearance and intelligence, Mortensen's orphaned Helena rises to every challenge that confronts her, from initial rejection by Bertram, to threats from the King, and even from an attempted seduction by Parolles. Bertrams's worthiness and his obvious fondness for Helena - traits not always depicted in productions of All's Well That Ends Well - provide a natural incentive for her as well as a realistic impetus for her growth as a person, as she strives to overcome the issue of her social rank.
Gaines' romantic focus on following the heart, anchored by the luminous Mortensen's Helena, is buoyed by the portrayal of Lavatch as a wise but world-weary strolling crooner, commenting in the role of Chorus through song versions of Shakespeare's sonnets (published at about the same time All's Well That Ends Well was composed), set to lush original music. Ronald Keaton, a veteran musical theatre performer and frequent comedy-relief supporting actor, elevates the production with his soulful singing. He croons Sonnet 130 to the Countess of Rossillion - "my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" - and sets the tone for the conclusion with Sonnet 116: "let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments."
After Helena's healing of the King, who becomes spry and witty and full of energy, she believes her prayers have been answered, but finds a series of challenges arrayed before her. With a beautiful smile, she shows surprise when asked to choose her betrothed - "I have done already" - and is embarrassed by Bertram's rejection - "I cannot love her" - although not deterred from continuing to seek his hand. Other potential issues are swatted away as if menial - the rejuvenated King dancing wildly with her, even presuming to grope her lewdly - and she much more definitively denies the absurd advances of a preening fop Parolles. Mortensen's Helena reveals an increasing inner resolve, and Gaines concludes the first act with the image of Bertram joining the soldiers in preparations for war. The Countess reads Helena's letter upstage left as Helena herself emerges, bags packed and disguise readied, to speak the final words herself. Keaton's Lavatch finishes the scene ("what freezings have I felt, what dark days seen") with a reprise of the lilting Sonnet 97.
The pivotal seduction scene, in most productions of All's Well That Ends Well a difficult-to-stage deceitful entrapment, here plays as a carnal seduction, with a sexy Diana pulling the finger from Bertram's finger with her mouth. Bertram, trying in vain to resist, drops to his hands and knees in a failed attempt to conceal from the temptress his obvious excitement. Downstage, Lavatch croons Sonnet 129 - "the expense of spirit in a waste of shame / Is lust in action" - as Diana succeeds in seducing Bertram and Helena quickly and quietly takes her place. The deception is difficult to reconcile, but with Bertram's obvious reluctance, followed by his response to the allure of the shadowed Helena with her flashing eyes and bare-shouldered nightgown, remains at least partially true at heart. Timothy Gregory plays Bertram as a sandy-haired gentleman, one part soldier and one part romantic, and he throws the puerile Parolles to the ground in a rage before appealing directly to the audience to explain his actions and describe his change of heart. Later, when Gregory finally notices Helena, who has entered and is visibly pregnant with his child, he is overwhelmed, both with shame at his actions ("o pardon!") as well as sorrow at besmirching Helena's love, and he collapses before her.
Gaines moves this mature and complex production toward its conclusion with a realistic sense of emotional stalemate. While the entire court dances in happy pairs around him, the King notices the unsmiling Helena and Bertram at opposite sides of the floor, each without a dancing partner. Their union is not so easy and predestined to be automatic and immediate, and they sidle closer to each other as the King remarks, "all yet seems well."
The two are standing tentatively beside each other and apparently warming to one another as the dancers continue to swirl around them and the lights slowly fade away.
Helena's determination and trueness to her heart - "love's not Time's fool" - is rewarded, if not with a definitively happy ending, but with an allusion to her - and their - possibility for future happiness that is rich with complexity and realism and a tribute to both Gaines' sensitive direction and understanding of the story as well as to Mortensen's radiant performance.