All's Well

Miranda arrives late to rehearsal to find her students waiting on the stage. All of them are holding copies of All’s Well That Ends Well, though Miranda notes they dislike the choice of play. Briana, who will play the lead role of Helen, seems especially displeased. Miranda dislikes the girl, who she thinks is a poor actor. She was forced to give her the role because her parents are major donors to the theater program. If it were up to Miranda, she would have Ellie, a mousy girl who is very talented, play Helen. The set designer, Hugo, walks in, and Miranda is suddenly unnerved because she is attracted to him. He works quietly at the back as she talks to her students about the play. Miranda feels unfocused from all her medication and struggles to stay on task.

Trevor, Briana’s boyfriend and the lead actor, confronts Miranda, challenging her choice of play. He criticizes the plot and characters and asks to change the production to Macbeth. Miranda tries to defend All’s Well That Ends Well, but she notes that Grace sits by quietly, offering no support.

Finally, Ellie speaks up in defense of Miranda’s choice, saying the uniqueness of All’s Well That Ends Well will give them an advantage at the Shakespeare play competition they will attend. Briana requests a warm-up exercise before they start rehearsals, but Miranda refuses because seeing her young students move easily and flexibly aggravates her. Grace steps in, offering to lead the warm-up herself. Miranda retreats to the wings and takes another pain pill.

After rehearsal, Miranda and Grace go to a pub called The Canny Man. They discuss the students’ behavior, but Grace is dismissive of Miranda’s concerns. She seems to agree with the students that All’s Well That Ends Well isn’t a good choice and that they should switch to Macbeth. However, Grace defers to Miranda’s choice as director and tells her not to worry too much about it. Miranda recalls how she and Grace used to be friends, with Grace driving Miranda to her doctor’s appointments and helping with chores. However, she once told Miranda that she thought Miranda’s pain was “all in [her] head” (34), and this caused a strain in their relationship.

Miranda stays to drink alone after Grace leaves. She isn’t supposed to be mixing alcohol with her painkillers, and she soon begins to question what she sees and hears. For instance, she wonders if the lights are really dimming or if only she perceives it that way. She has an urge to call her ex-husband Paul but fights it. She recalls how they met when she was young, healthy, and beautiful, with a successful career as an actor ahead of her. She was in Edinburgh, playing the role of Helen in a production of All’s Well That Ends Well, and Paul came to watch it every night.

As she sits at the bar, three men in dark suits join her: “One tall, one fat, one middling” (40). The middling man speaks to her, demonstrating a supernatural knowledge of her medical and personal history, including her name and occupation. She notices the fat man has stringy gray hair and red blotches on his skin, while the tall man is extremely handsome but stays on the edges of her line of sight. The middling man gives Miranda a silk handkerchief to wipe her tears and then offers her a drink he calls a “golden remedy.” Desperate, she drinks it and experiences immediate relief from her pain, though she senses the effect is temporary. He quotes a line from All’s Well That Ends Well: “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie which we ascribe to heaven” (43). When Miranda asks him if he is in theater, he laughs and says everyone is.

The next day, Miranda attends an appointment at the SpineWorks rehabilitation center. She tells her physical therapist, Mark, that her pain has worsened. Recalling how his optimism about her case has faded, she endures his examination. He makes her perform backward bends, an exercise she knows will aggravate her condition. During her treatment, Miranda recalls how Paul encouraged her to apply for the assistant professor position at her college. After her injury, she stopped acting and spent all her time moping on their couch. The medication and treatments blunted her sexual desire. She still clung to Paul for emotional support but could sense him withdrawing.

As her pain intensifies, Mark dismisses her complaints. He uses a Graston tool and then dry needles on her back muscles. As his next patient arrives, Mark becomes detached, offering vague advice before ending the session. Miranda leaves feeling physically broken and emotionally invalidated.

The following afternoon, Miranda once again lies on her office floor in extreme pain. She recalls a phone call she made the previous night to Paul, who was dismissive of her suffering. She recalls how he used to support her unequivocally in the past, championing her acting. He used to remind her of her mother who died some years back; she, too, always supported Miranda, and she misses her. Now, Paul likes to remind Miranda that she left him, though Miranda only did that because she sensed he was tired of her.

Ellie arrives at Miranda’s office to warn her that the cast is filing a formal complaint with the dean to change the play. Ellie also senses Miranda is in pain and offers to make her a special healing mix for a bath, but Miranda declines.

Miranda ignores multiple calls from the dean, suspecting that Fauve is orchestrating a professional move against her. Later, she teaches her Playing Shakespeare class in a dissociated state and dismisses the students early. In the campus bathroom, she confronts her deteriorating appearance in the mirror, recalling how she took great care of her appearance before her injury.

Miranda arrives at the theater for rehearsal to find only Ellie present. She instructs Ellie to practice Helen’s soliloquy from the play since she is Briana’s understudy. Then, Miranda goes into the hallway to see if she can spot the other students or Grace, but she sees no one. Noticing the workshop door across the hall is open, Miranda enters and sees the half-finished sets for All’s Well That Ends Well. She spots Hugo and feels attracted to his strength and good looks. She recalls that he told her he studied Shakespeare when he was incarcerated. Hugo is excited to show her the maquette he has just built, and Miranda is shocked and disappointed to see that it is for Macbeth.

Hugo explains that Fauve informed him the dean had officially changed the play. He expresses surprise that Miranda had not been told first. Miranda flees the workshop.