(Michael Feingold’s article appeared in the Village Voice, 6/29.)
They call it a "problem play," and I agree: Normally, All's Well That Ends Well (Delacorte Theater) gives me more problems, with fewer rewards, than almost any other Shakespeare work. Watching Helena (Annie Parisse), the doctor's daughter and disciple, abase and humiliate herself to win the haughty, callowly cruel aristocrat Bertram (Andre Holland) is only fun if you really relish Schadenfreude. The trickery that she uses belongs in a storybook; the clear-eyed sexual awareness with which Shakespeare infuses the tale belongs in a medical textbook.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-29/theater/all-s-well-that-ends-well-faults-to-waltz-to/