Slings and Arrows

"Slings and Arrows" is a Canadian TV series set at the fictional New Burbage Festival, a troubled Shakespearean festival similar to the real-world Stratford Festival. The program stars Paul Gross, Stephen Ouimette and Martha Burns.

The blackly comic series first aired on Canada's Movie Central and The Movie Network channels in 2003, and received wide acclaim in the United States when it was shown there on the Sundance Channel two years later. Three seasons of six episodes each were filmed in total, with the final season airing in Canada in the summer of 2006 and in the United States in early 2007.

The show was co-created and co-written by former Kids in the Hall member Mark McKinney, playwright and actress Susan Coyne, and comedian Bob Martin, the Tony-award winning co-creator of "The Drowsy Chaperone". All three appear in the series as well.

Plot Summary

eason One

The show's central characters are actor/director Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross), New Burbage artistic director Oliver Welles (Stephen Ouimette), and actress Ellen Fanshaw (Martha Burns), who seven years previously collaborated on a legendary production of "Hamlet". Midway through one of the performances, Geoffrey suffered a nervous breakdown, jumped into Ophelia's grave and then ran screaming from the stage. After that, he was committed to a psychiatric institution.

When the series begins, Geoffrey is in Toronto, running a small company, "Théâtre Sans Argent" (French for "Theatre Without Money"), on the verge of being evicted. Oliver and Ellen have stayed at New Burbage, where Oliver has gradually been commercializing his productions and the festival. On the opening night of the New Burbage's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Oliver sees Geoffrey on the news, chained to his theater. Heavily drunk, Oliver calls Geoffrey from a payphone and they argue about the past. Oliver then passes out in the street and is run over and killed by a truck bearing the slogan "Canada's Best Hams."

Geoffrey's blistering eulogy at Oliver's funeral about the state of the festival leads to him being asked to take over Oliver's job on a temporary basis. After clashing with an old rival, Darren Nichols (Don McKellar), Geoffrey is reluctantly forced to take over directing the festival's latest production of "Hamlet". Making this difficult are Jack Crew (Luke Kirby), the insecure American film star cast as Hamlet; Geoffrey's former lover Ellen, who is playing Gertrude and dating a much younger man; and Oliver, now haunting both Geoffrey and the festival as a ghost. Also in the play is apprentice actress Kate (Rachel McAdams), who finds herself falling for Jack.

On the business side of the festival, New Burbage manager Richard Smith-Jones (Mark McKinney) is seduced by one of his sponsors, American executive Holly Day (Jennifer Irwin) who wants to remake New Burbage into a shallow, commercialized "Shakespeareville".

The episodes were all directed by Peter Wellington, and written by Susan Coyne, Bob Martin, and Mark McKinney.

Trivia

The title is taken from Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1) in the famous soliloquy:"To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them?"

The location New Burbage seems to be in reference to Richard Burbage the main actor in Shakespeare's company the King's Men.

Each season's production problems mirrors the play the company is performing.

Paul Gross is most famous for the role of Benton Fraser in the series "Due South". Benton, like Geoffrey, is haunted by a ghost, although otherwise the nature of each role is strikingly different.

Several of the cast and creators have longstanding connections with each other and with the Stratford Festival; in many cases they are playing parts that mirror their real-world involvement with the theatre. Oliver, the New Burbage director, is played by Ouimette, who has both acted and directed at Stratford. In the third season, aging Canadian theatre legend Charles is played by William Hutt, a stage actor who performed at Stratford in its first season and many of the 50 years that followed. In addition, Gross, Burns and Coyne have all acted at Stratford. Although Gross himself played the title role of "Hamlet" at Stratford in 2000, New Burbage's use of a movie star to play Hamlet most closely parallels the situation of action movie star Keanu Reeves being hired to play the role at Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1995.

Gross and Burns, who play Geoffrey and Ellen, are married and, like their fictional counterparts, met while acting opposite each other. As young actors, Ouimette and Burns starred together in "Romeo and Juliet" and a photo of them in those roles can be seen in Ellen's dressing room. McKellar, who plays Darren, the avant-garde theatre director, is an indie film director and screenwriter who co-wrote "Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould", which starred Feore. Polley, who plays Sophie in the third season, is the daughter of Michael Polley, who plays one of the two older gay character actors who provide dry commentary throughout the series (and sing the credits). Finally, Coyne and Burns are old friends who helped co-found Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre Company.

The interior shots of the theatre in the show were filmed at the Sanderson Center in Brantford, Ontario, about fifty miles from the actual Stratford Festival upon which the show is loosely based.

"The Drowsy Chaperone", the first Canadian musical to become a Broadway success in decades, was penned by some of the same people responsible for "Slings and Arrows." Music and lyrics were by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, who wrote the witty title credit songs for "Slings and Arrows", and the book was written by McKellar and Martin. Martin also starred in the show as the Man in the Chair. The third season of "Slings and Arrows" alludes to the "Drowsy Chaperone" success with subplots involving Canadians on Broadway and developing a new musical.

External links

*imdb title|title=Slings and Arrows|id=0387779
* [http://www.americantheatrewing.org/downstagecenter/detail/bob_martin Bob Martin] - "Downstage Center" interview at American Theatre Wing.org, June 2006
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12144988 Slings & Arrows] - "NPR Weekend Edition" interview at NPR.org, July 21, 2007