On the Scene: Shakespeare, Boston Common and the People

"This is our 16th year of bringing free Shakespeare to the public."

It is a common theme in discussions of Shakespeare (his plays and his personage) to talk of bringing Shakespeare to the people or, as an organizer at last night's Shakespeare on the Common referred to them, "the public." Americans and much of the English-speaking world revere Shakespeare. His work is considered by many to be the apotheosis of high culture. As columnist Gerald Nachman famously noted (not without sarcasm) in 1979, Shakespeare is "theatrical spinach: He's good for you. If you digest enough of his plays, you'll grow up big and strong intellectually like teacher." 

And so, I trudged to Boston Common and fought for a spot to eat my Shakespeare spinach for free and grow up big and strong intellectually with the rest of the common folk.

This year the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC) is performing All's Well That Ends Well. The play is not one of Shakespeare's better-known; however, if you have never been to one of the CSC's summer productions, this one truly turns out to be a summer night well spent. 

All's Well That Ends Well is a play about class predjudice and the limits of attraction. It is at once both comedic and tragic. The play opens with the funeral of Bertram's father, the late Count of Rossillion. Initially, we feel pity for Bertram at the loss of his father. But as the play progresses, we grow frustrated with Betram's classist chauvinism as he balks at the proposition that he marry Helena whom he describes as but "a poor physician's daughter" (Act II) and flees to Florence. 

In the end, all ends well, sort of. Bertram, rather inexplicably, devotes himself to Helena (the same woman he at one point insists he could never even 'bed') when she confronts him in Rossillion. Though this ending is not Shakespeare's best, it is instructive in a way. The play and its ending remind us to stay the course, to continue to pursue one's passion even in the face of all odds and to resist the socially-defined barriers of class and gender. 

All's Well That Ends Well runs from July 27-August 14, 2011. Get there early. Oh, and bring a blanket, some food and, of course, your people.