All's Well That Ends Well?
David Thompson, 11 Jun 2009
I spent yesterday evening enjoying the National Theatre’s fantastic production of All’s Well That Ends Well. Commonly referred to as one of Shakespeare’s “problem” plays (a category that also includes Measure for Measure and Troilus & Cressida), All’s Well is a strangely unsettling piece that uses a conventional comic structure to explore darker aspects of our experience. Disguised as a folk tale, the play raises questions about the nature of love, loyalty, devotion and identity.
In this production, I was struck by the play’s consideration of what happens when we allow our desire for a particular outcome to drive our actions – even when we know better: even when that outcome might be a disaster.
A quick rundown of the plot will be helpful here: Helena is the orphaned daughter of a physician. As the play opens, she is under the care of the Countess of Rousillon, who has taken her in as her ward. Helena is deeply infatuated with the Countess’s son, Bertram. Unseason’d youth he may be, yet Bertram is the object of Helena’s unremitting desire. In the opening scene, Bertram leaves home to serve at the court of the ailing king of France.
Weeks later, Helena herself visits the court and cures the king of his illness, using special treatments taught to her by her father. The king rewards her by allowing her to choose a husband from his courtiers. She chooses Bertram – who not only does not love her, but who is shocked to learn that Helena loves him.
After his enforced marriage, Bertram flies the court to join the French army in Italy. He will sooner go to war than remain with a wife he doesn’t love. He proclaims in a letter to Helena that he will never consider her his wife until she gets his ring from off of his finger and gets herself pregnant with his child (an impossible act, as Bertram refuses to consummate the marriage).
Helena sets up a series of elaborate ruses that will result in her fulfilling the requirements of Bertram’s letter. In doing so, she comes dangerously close to compromising another woman’s virtue. She allows Bertram, his mother, and all of her friends at court to believe she has died on her travels – all in order to get her man.
When faced with yet another obstacle in her way, Helena proclaims “All’s well that ends well yet, / Though time seem so adverse and means unfit.” In other words, Helena drives herself on by focusing on the end result – all will be worthwhile, she tells herself, once I get what I want.
In the final scene, all is revealed – Helena’s plots succeed, and Bertram consents to be her husband. Though the play’s close aligns with formal convention of duplicity exposed, lovers united and marriage knots tied – it is by no means a happy ending. Bertram – for all his faults – has been condemned to marriage with a woman he does not love. And Helena, a woman of wit, skill and determination, has tied herself for eternity to a man who does not want her – setting herself up, quite probably, for a lifetime of pain.
As is always the case with Shakespeare, the dramatist explores subtle layers of universal experience through the scope of an engaging story. Helena’s determination to win Bertram at any cost – to herself, to others, even to her beloved Bertram – prompts me to think about how often the dogged pursuit of our desires can have horrible consequences.
The play shows what happens when a desire at the unconscious level takes control of behaviour – regardless of whether a person knows, consciously, that their behaviour will almost certainly have a negative impact.
For all of her intelligence, courage and resilience, Helena is markedly unwilling to let go of her love for Bertram, even when she recognises that her passion will do both of them harm. While her strength in the face of adversity is admirable – it also results in what will likely be a lifetime of unhappiness.
Helena’s goal is missing one crucial element: it lacks ecology –for herself and those around her. The consequences of pursuing and realising her objective are harmful – however desirable they seem on the surface. And I think that’s why it so very difficult for Helena to get what she wants in the play: because at some level of her consciousness, she knows that what she wants isn’t good for her or for the other people involved.
Sometimes, the difficulty of a particular act can challenge us, stretch us, and help us develop new skills, new patterns of thought and new depths of character. We can interpret the obstacles before us as opportunities for our growth.
But it’s also worth noting that sometimes things are difficult because they’re the wrong things for us. Try and try and try again as we might, the difficulties remain because we’re pursuing something that doesn’t fit in any way with our own particular talents, abilities, and skills. We may truly want it – but if every aspect of our pursuit is an effort, then we might be better served doing something else.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has conducted extensive research regarding what he calls the “Flow State” for individuals – the point at which we experience peak states of activity and consciousness. An essential element of achieving flow is the degree of difficulty associated with the activity. Too easy and the activity becomes boring and depressing. Too hard, and we become frustrated and angered. The right degree of challenge with progress is essential.
Helena’s pursuit of Bertram, far from being progressively challenging is consistently frustrating – and yet she continues. She pushes harder and harder until a forced resolution is eventually realised. And Shakespeare gives her story an ending loaded with ambiguity and potential sadness. Her pattern of consistently choosing the hardest path might be setting her up for even more difficulty in the future.
Leaping centuries forward from Shakespeare to my second favourite cultural reference point, I think Helena might take some guidance from a philosophical duologue between Homer and Bart Simpson.
“Where’s your guitar?”
“I wasn’t good at it right away, so I quit. I hope you’re not mad.”
“Son, come here. Of course I’m not mad. If something’s hard to do, it’s not worth doing. Now you go and put that guitar in the attic with your karate outfit, your short-wave radio and your unicycle, and we’ll go inside and watch TV.”
“What’s on?” asks Bart.
“It doesn’t matter.”
While Homer’s attitude to difficulty and challenge is at the opposite extreme, it’s not entirely unsound. There are benefits to choosing the path that challenges us appropriately and allows us to use our skills and talents to optimal effect for ourselves and the people around us.
When Helena cures the king of his fistula, she does so with ease. Despite the fact that the world’s most renowned and learned doctors have proclaimed his illness untreatable – Helena gracefully heals the king physically and mentally. She works with grace upon the king’s mind to open him up to the possibility of wellness, and she helps him move from infirmity to literally dancing with happiness in the space of a scene.
I wonder what kind of ending All’s Well might have – and what kind of life might lay in store for Helena – were she to allow herself to develop her natural talents as a healer rather than to pursue an unattainable love?
I wonder too, how many of the ambitions of us pursue are truly aligned with who we are? How many of us are trusting success and building upon positive experience to shape our lives? How many of us are, instead, straining, striving, and painfully contorting ourselves in pursuit of some ideal – the benefits we may realise in some indeterminate future?
For what purpose are we waiting for things to end well rather than allowing them to be all well now?
