Bard’s ‘All’s Well’ on Common very much lives up to title

The current production of “All’s Well That Ends Well” on Boston Common not only winds up pleasingly, but it’s uniformly excellent throughout.

The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC) has had its hits and misses over the years, but its 16th free summer presentation may be its most richly satisfying effort to date, even though the prickly tale is often regarded as a “dark comedy” or “problem play.” Its dubious rep stems largely from its unromantic plot about a poor physician’s daughter, Helena, crisscrossing Europe and performing near-miracles just to get the snooty Count Bertram to accept her as his wife.

True, the play’s prevailing mood is wistfulness for a fast-disappearing golden age, beginning with noble old folks passing away and ending not with a cliché wedding, but with the prospect of a child’s birth. Award-winning CSC director Steven Maler works with the playwright’s autumnal mood and wisely refrains from gussying the show up with overstated costumes, interpolated musical numbers, or underwhelming guest stars.

He does, however, cast four of Boston’s most reliable laugh-getters to maximize audience appreciation of the humor inherent to the Bard’s scenes. Two of them are ART veterans: Remo Airaldi as the canny old lord Lafew and Karen MacDonald as the fun-loving Countess of Rossilion. The role of Lavatch, one of Shakespeare’s many court wiseacres, may strike play-readers as tedious, but in performance Larry Coen amazingly manages to find hilarity in virtually his every line.

The most memorable comic character, the braggart warrior Parolles, is masterfully underplayed by Fred Sullivan, Jr., who retains a certain dignity and vulnerability even while quaking in his fancy boots and epaulettes.

But the real revelation and the heart of the production is Kersti Byran. Her Helena is neither a doormat nor Superwoman, successively and convincingly displaying the heroine’s modesty, self-doubt, determination, and resourcefulness. Audiences instantly fall in love with her, even if Bertram never quite does.

And it helps that Nick Dillenburg, in the show’s trickiest part, presents the callow count as still grieving for his late father and, misguided by Parolles, more unable to value Helena as she deserves rather than rationally rejecting this lowborn paragon.

With the dynamics of the play so well understood by the director and cast, audiences have no trouble following them also. Spectators’ only difficulty with this “problem play” will be how to schedule time to see it before performances end this Sunday.