All's Well

Product Information

AWAD: Yeah. I think it did. You know, I do see the ending with Bertram and that single line differently. And, I appreciate the fact that she is a character who openly shares her desire. One evening she goes to a dive bar and meets three men in suits who seem to know everything about her. They offer her a golden remedy with the promise that it will cure all of her ailments. And that’s how this darkly funny and bizarre tale unfurls from there. Amidst all the many receptions and rewritings of Shakespeare plays, this is one of the most creative I've read as Awad takes inspiration from the problematic All's Well That Ends Well, mashes it up with Macbeth in particular with a smattering of other allusions including, importantly, Doctor Faustus but allows her own confection to take flight in an unashamedly modern and feminist direction. Your video will play after ad, it reads in a small box in the bottom corner of the screen. No choice. No choice then but to lie here and listen to how there is hope thanks to Eradica. The one pill I didn’t try, because the side effects scared me more than the pain. No choice but to watch the bad actress bicycle in the idyllic afternoon of the drug commercial with a blandly handsome man who I presume is her fake husband. He is dressed in a reassuring plaid. He reminds me of the male torso on the Brawny paper towels I buy out of wilted lust. Also of my ex-husband, Paul. Except that this man is smiling at his fake wife. Not shaking his head. Not saying, Miranda, I’m at a loss.

Years ago, she had dazzled in Helen’s role, Shakespeare’s heroine in “All’s Well That Ends Well.” Awad sets up parallels between Miranda and Helen; both are scorned and in search of a remedy that will restore their dignity. But a conflict breaks out: Miranda’s students dislike the play and want to stage “Macbeth” instead. Miranda, exasperatingly, refuses. AWAD: Yeah, I think so. That’s another reason why I think Shakespeare was so exciting to me is those reversals of fortune. You can be sunk very, very low but then suddenly rise, and that was very exciting. Especially to me, given the circumstances in which I found myself, which is being in this pain that I wondered if it would ever go away and dreaming of a day when I would not feel it anymore. So, yes. Absolutely. The fat man starts to laugh so hard he begins to cough. He coughs and coughs growing red in the face. The veins on his cheeks fatten, grow livid. ‘He’s going to die,’ I think. Keel over any minute.Miranda has chronic pain as a result of falling off stage just when her career was about to take off. Now, she’s in her mid-thirties and is a theatre professor who can barely move without pain lighting fires throughout her body. To Miranda’s chagrin, everyone in her life is tired of her complaining about it and they keep telling her it must be in her head, that she’s being theatric about it. All the same, Miranda is about to start rehearsals for this year’s play, All’s Well That Ends Well by Shakespeare. Miranda was powerful, connectable character you truly care about. The thin line between fantasy and fiction was a little intense and confusing for me. I skip some parts because it was truly exhausting experience for me but writing is uniquely creative and original which I absolutely enjoyed a lot! Now I attempt to hit the play button in the bottom left corner of the YouTube screen, to skip past this hideous ad to the video I actually want to watch. Act One, Scene One of All’s Well That Ends Well, the play we are staging this term. Helen’s crucial soliloquy. BOGAEV: It’s interesting as a reader, those transitions too, because for instance the three men, or the witches, give Miranda a potion, eventually.

BOGAEV: Well, we’ve been talking about some of the realist parts of your novel, but your book takes a turn away realism pretty early on. Miranda goes to a bar and she mixes pain medication with booze. She kind of goes off into what, at first seems like a tipsy reverie, but it soon morphs into this encounter with three mysterious men who seem to know all about her, and they speak like the weird sisters or witches in Macbeth. Why did you want a supernatural element in this story, besides your thoughts on Macbeth? I mean—and do you even think of what you did as a supernatural element? BOGAEV: Let’s—you know, love is war. Let’s literally have both of these characters go to war and see what happens.Set in present day New England, Mona Awad’s new novel “ All’s Well” is a daring adaptation of one of the lesser-known plays in the Shakespeare canon, “All’s Well That Ends Well.” Amidst the fun and mayhem, and the increasing psychological chaos, this also makes pointed comments about gender and gendered power, figured via the three male 'doctors' who replace the witches from Macbeth (and note the multiple uses of the word 'weird' around them, as well as the subtle way they reflects the three phases of the moon giving an association with Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, especially the one who is only ever seen as 'a sliver' to represent the new moon) - and who contrast with the doctors and other healers who refuse to listen to Miranda (NB. The Tempest) and her own assessments of her chronic pain and the treatments that might help.

AWAD: He’s so wrong and he’s so conflicted about her and I just love that portrayal of a teacher. It’s so complicated because on the surface he’s a wonderful teacher and everybody loves him, but he has these dark feelings. And they do inform his actions. Teachers are just human, right? After an accident left Miranda Fitch with a crippling injury and chronic pain, her husband, Paul, left her, and she had to give up her dream of being a stage actress. Now, physically and emotionally broken, she teaches theatre at a local college, watching young actresses live the life she once thought she’d have. Through it all though, Miranda is desperate to have her class perform “All’s Well That Ends Well”, the Shakespeare play that she fell in love with when she performed the lead role years ago. But, unknowingly, “All’s Well” will change Miranda’s life in unbelievable ways.BOGAEV: The transitions must be really hard, I was thinking, from realism to magical realism or whatever we’re calling this. As a writer, how do you create that?

BOGAEV: Spooky. Oh, it’s so great at the end. You know, “Run. Show me.” Can’t resist. I don’t want to give away what happens, but these mysterious men help Miranda to completely upend the power relationships between her and her colleagues and her students. So, what was your thinking about this? Is there a message about pain and power? Or are you exploring those dynamics just by the fact of turning them on their head? BARBARA BOGAEV: Right away, even before I open your book practically, your title is All’s Well, but am I supposed to make some connection to The Tempest because the protagonist’s name is Miranda? re-read: i liked certain aspects more this time around but the repetition does sometimes feel OTP & that final sequence is a wee bit overlong…still, the author definitely captures how chronic pain in women is often dismissed or attributed to an ‘inherently female’ emotional imbalance…if you haven’t read this you should definitely add it to your TBR pileI’ll warn you, at first I didn’t see any humor in the story. Miranda made me cringe more than laugh. For everyone who has an ailment that isn’t visible to the naked eye, it will ring true. The power is just a performance of—there is no real power. You know, it is. Teaching is a performance. It really is. You’re trying to convince and you’re trying to get them engaged and get them interested. They have a lot more power than they think. Dr. Awad has taught creative writing at Brown University, the University of Denver, Framingham State University, Tufts and in the MFA program at U-Mass-Amherst. She was interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. AWAD: Right. Yes, Mark is Miranda’s physical therapist. They’ve been working together for a while now on her pain, to no end, of course. Okay. I’ll just start.