[.ca] Slings and Arrows: Season 3

Is Geoffery Tennant a man More sinn'd against than sinning?:
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