Friday Flashback: Rec. #127: Slings and Arrows, season 1

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some earlier posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: The television series Slings and Arrows charts three seasons in the life of a Shakespearean theater festival. The show does not even pretend that it is not really about the Stratford Festival of Canada*. Each season of the series uses one main play as its framework, as well as its locus for certain thematic threads. We begin, of course, with Hamlet.

The new artistic director of the New Burbage Festival, Geoffrey Tennant**, gave a shattering performance as Hamlet there seven years ago . . . which drove him first to a psychiatric facility and then to fringe theater. Now he's returned to the New Burbage Festival in the middle of a season that centers around a production of Hamlet. Darkly comic hijinks ensue.

Comparable to: Similar to Sports Night in that it's a clever look at the backstage lives of very articulate people. But it's more Canadian.

Representative quote: "Darren, everybody cries when they get stabbed. There's no shame in that."

You might not like it if: You get distracted looking for Dave Foley because that is your Pavlovian response to seeing anyone from Kids in the Hall. (Mark McKinney is one of the creators of Slings and Arrows and also has a pivotal role in the series.)

How to get it: You can watch it instantly on Netflix or Amazon. If you'd like to know what you're heading into, in season 2 we get Macbeth and we end with King Lear in season 3. The creators planned ahead for the show to be a three-season series, so there's a very carefully planned story arc.


*If you've been to Canada's Stratford Festival (maybe with me?), you will probably recognize several of the actors in the show.

**Geoffrey Tennant is played by Paul Gross. I actually saw Paul Gross as Hamlet in a production at Stratford. Unlike Geoffrey Tennant, Paul Gross did not jump into Ophelia's grave. Nor, to my knowledge, did he have to be committed after his performance.

[Connections to other Wreckage: Season 2 of Slings and Arrows was Rec. #191. Sports Night was Rec. #236.]

[Originally posted 5/16/11.]