Slings and Arrows: Season 3

 

 

Create your own review

When life takes its toll
When fate treats you bad
You used to be king
And now you've been had
Alone with you're fool
You think you'll go made
It's nice to take a walk in the rain

A stomp through a storm
Is what I'd advise
When people you trust
Tell nothing but lies
And kidnap your friend
And gouge out his eyes
It's nice to take a walk in the rain

In Season 1 of "Slings & Arrows," when the reasonably insane Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross) returned to the New Burbage Theater as artistic director it was to put on a production of "Hamlet" that features a young American heartthrob as the melancholy Dane and the then unknown Rachel McAdams as the production's Ophelia. Season 2 saw Geoffrey forced to put on a production of "MacBeth" as a tribute to the late Oliver Welles (Stephen Ouimette), an honor made painfully ironic by the fact that the spirit of Geoffrey's predecessor and former mentor is still around bedeviling our hero. The second season was not quite on the level of the first, and so I was concerned that the third and final season would not be a charm, but continue the decline. However, by the time I watched the six episodes in which the New Burbage Theater puts on a new production of "King Lear," I had to try and decide if this last season was the best of all for this Canadian production that is a must see for anybody who has been involved in the theater, even if they have never been in a production of one of the Bard's works.

Not only is the New Burbage Theater putting on "Lear," but also a new musical, "East Hastings," a low-"Rent" junkie-musical, which directed by Darren Nichols (Don McKellar), a nagging presence who Geoffrey has had no more success ditching than he has with the ghostly Oliver. Richard Smith-Jones (Mark McKinney) also has a hand in the musical's success, and while the good news is that he appears to be blossoming as a human being the bad news is also that he is blossoming as a human being. Ellen (Martha Burns) is still around, but she and Geoffrey are involved in a perpetual tradeoff between forward and backwards steps. The key new players in the mix are Charles Kingsman (William Hutt), the aged actor who comes out of retirement to do Lear, and Sophie (Sarah Polley), the young actress who will be playing Cordelia. Charles commands pretty much every scene that he is in, usually by degrading his fellow actors for their inadequacy in understanding and reciting the text, but also by declaiming Lear's lines enough to make us eager to see him actually do the play (and one of the great joys with this DVD set is that there are scenes that are just the performance of "King Lear," and not of the play within the play that is always at the heart of this series). However, the main problem turns out to be neither Charles' temper nor his temperament, but something more serious.

The most brilliant part of this third season of "Slings & Arrows" is how they milk the opening night of "Lear" (a cryptic comment that will make better sense after you watch these six episodes). After all, it is the performance that is the thing, and not the play. Whether it is "Hamlet," MacBeth," or "King Lear," it is how this cast responds to the challenge, and how comedy and pathos can be traded off at a moment's notice. Meanwhile, Geoffrey has to work out his complicated relationships with Oliver and Ellen and come to some final resolution (but we will believe both when and only when we see it). Of course, you will be sad to see it all end, and then the question is how long you will wait before you go back and enjoy the first season again. Fortunately, while the plays being performed might have been tragedies, "Slings & Arrows" really is a comedy at heart, which is why it ends, as all of Shakespeare's comedies do, with a wedding and a song (but what follows is not the song in question, but the other half of the song that opens up each episode of Season 3).

You say your daughters
Are evil plotters
A pitter patter shower will keep you sane

When all has been said
And all have been slain
It's good to take a walk in the rain
For several hours
Helps to have a howl in the rain
Without your clothes on
Nice to take a walk in the rain

I remember seeing William Hutt at the Stratford Festival in about 2002 playing the King of France in All's Well that Ends Well. Almost ten years later, it's great to see him doing Shakespeare and more in this series. After more than 50 years, William Hutt is a master of Shakespearean theatre.
It's also nice to see Richard (Mark McKinney's character) get a chance to be a winner and indulge his love of musical theatre, and get a bit of a one-up on Darren Nichols (fabulously played by Don McKellar).
If you've liked the first two seasons of Slings and Arrows, season three is as good or better.

Slings and Arrows is cleverly conceived and well written and performed. My beef is the sound quality on the particular DVDs that were sent to me. I had to turn the sound up to three-quarters of full volume to get normal loudness, and even then the sound was low-fi and variable. The packaging looks authentic, but the DVDs perform like they have ben pirated and resold.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Search Listmania!