"Darren, everyone cries when they're stabbed. There's no shame in that." - General Manager Richard Smith-Jones (Mark McKinney) to temperamental director Darren Nichols (Don McKellar) after Darren is whacked with a prop sword
Slings & Arrows: Season 1 DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
If you've ever been involved in the performing arts, then the roiling egos, crass commercialism, and blasé attitudes toward theatre as an art which are on display behind-the-scenes at the New Burbage Shakespeare Festival in Canada's Slings & Arrows: Season 1 (seen in the U.S. on the Sundance Channel) will surely provoke belly-laughs of recognition. If you've ever merely wanted to be involved in the performing arts, you'll laugh, too. You'll also be happy that you took your mother's advice and became an accountant instead.
Oliver Welles (Stephen Ouimette) is the artistic director of Canada's fictional New Burbage Shakespeare Festival. At one time, Oliver was artistically daring. Now, however, he spends entire rehearsals perfecting the bleating of a flock of prop sheep and has his star deliver her big monologue facing away from the audience. Sure, they can't hear her, but boy does the stage picture look good. Oliver has become complacent and bored, giving audiences the bland, unchallenging productions he thinks they want. As porcine theatre critic Basil (Sean Cullen) proclaims, Oliver's shows "are comfortable.like an old boot."
The festival's repertory company doesn't exactly help the situation. Longtime star Ellen Fanshaw (Martha Burns) is a diva in the extreme. She yells at underlings (i.e. everyone), shows up late for rehearsals, and thinks nothing of sending the stage manager out for coffee and cookies. Claire Donner (Sabrina Grdevich) is a talentless young actress who still manages to get cast in roles because she is related to one of the board members. Ingénue Kate McNab (Wedding Crashers' Rachel McAdams) shows promise, but as an intern, she only gets cast in bit roles and as understudies.
Richard Smith-Jones (The Kids in the Hall's Mark McKinney) knows that none of this really matters. The theatre is a business, not an art, and they make a tidy profit from sales in the Festival's newly expanded gift shop. His new liaison at the festival's major funder, Cosmopolitan Lenstrex, agrees. Corporate officer Holly Day (Still Standing's Jennifer Irwin) even reveals to Richard her secret plan for New Burbage - turning the entire town into Shakespeareville, a theme park-esque series of mega-theatres (only two tiny stages would actually be devoted to Shakespeare while the others would host musicals and Broadway touring shows), hotels, and other attractions that would turn the entire town into a giant gift shop.
The New Burbage Festival stands in stark contrast with Theatre Sans Argent (Theatre without Money), an independent production company run by Geoffrey Tennant (Tales of the City's Paul Gross). Seven years ago, Tennant was a rising star at New Burbage, garnering praise for his performance of Hamlet in a production directed by Oliver and co-starring Ellen. A personal betrayal, however, led to a breakdown, and he went completely blank onstage, finally escaping by jumping into the prompter's box at the edge of the stage. While the New Burbage continued its decline from art to commerce, Geoffrey created edgy productions that were well-received critically but that played to empty houses. When Theatre Sans Argent's landlord threatens to evict the company for non-payment of rent just as their production of The Tempest is set to open, Geoffrey chains himself to the building's front door.
Geoffrey's futile act of defiance is covered by the national news as a tale of artistic integrity versus commerce. At the same time, Oliver's "old boot" production of A Midsummer Night's Dream opens at the New Burbage. When a few too many glasses of celebratory alcohol and an eighteen wheeler filled with ham bring Oliver - and his artistic career - to an ignoble end, the newly unearthed Geoffrey is recruited by New Burbage chairwoman May Silverstone (Marcia Bennett) to become the festival's interim artistic director. There are only a few problems. Geoffrey - who might still be a little insane - is haunted by Oliver. Holly sees Oliver's death as the perfect opportunity to wrest control of the theatre from the current board. And then there's the matter of the first play to be produced under Geoffrey's watch: Hamlet, with Hollywood star Jack Crew (Luke Kirby) as the Danish prince. Will any of them be able to survive?
Slings & Arrows is a biting look at the world of theatre and the often eccentric characters who are drawn to it. Claire wants to read two sonnets at Oliver's memorial service because it will mean "exposure" and might lead to larger roles in the future. A codicil in Oliver's will stipulates that his head should be removed from his body and rendered so that his skull can appear as Yorick in all future productions of Hamlet. The hack hired to take over Hamlet declares it a "dead text" that has to be rethought for modern audiences, and that their production will be post-apocalyptic, complete with plumes of fire and live horses. Jack has learned his lines in Shakespearean verse but refuses to say them onstage until he "feels" them. Richard thinks Shakespeare was a terrible writer but loves Mamma Mia! because he "understood every word."
Zippy and funny, Slings & Arrows: Season 1 has one potential flaw: some of the jokes and humor are so specific that non-theatre fans might feel left out. Still, there is probably enough intrigue, backstabbing, and slapstick here to keep even neophytes entertained.
The six episodes that make up Slings & Arrows: Season 1 are divided onto two discs. The discs are housed in two thin keepcases which slide into a cardboard slipcover. The back of each keepcase includes brief synopses of the episodes found on the DVDs. The synopses don't give away any major plot points, but they reveal enough that viewers may still want to avoid reading them until after watching the episodes.
The menus are simple and functional. Viewers can choose to watch an entire episode or can jump directly to a scene using the "Scene Selection" menu.
