Slings & Arrows (Spoilers)

I've watched S1, and it's fantastic. I compare the show to "Waiting for Guffman" but in a Shakespeare festival. I've spent some time in various arts organizations, and the behavior and motivations of the characters ring true.

My favorites so far:

Richard, the hapless general manager/accountant. He's in league with the devil, a power-mad money person named Holly Day, but only because he's blinded by her (in bed).

I absolutely adore Geoffrey. He plays the former star of the festival, who went through some disgrace as Hamlet once.

Oliver is amazing. For those who haven't seen the show yet, I'll just say that his presence in the show is hilarious. I love his conversations with Geoffrey.

The background characters, the two older gay gentlemen who always end up playing sentinels and who have seen everything, and the morticians who are full of strange jokes and wit, are stunning in their realism.

Side note: Ellen and Geoffrey are married in real life, and have a couple of kids.

Richard, the general manager, is a Kids in the Hall alumnus. He co-wrote the series with the "secretary" and the "accountant" who does a perfect line reading of "Tomorrow tomorrow and tomorrow" in one of the workshops.

OK, later! Fun show; thanks for letting me know about it!

I have a general question for the series. What's Oliver's status as a theater director? We know that he had an amazing play with Geoffrey in Hamlet. We know that at the end of his career he was a shell of himself and a sell-out. Really, the best clues are from the patrons in the bathroom in the pilot, who mention the good ol' days when Oliver was respected.

Was he legendary? Was he a better director than Geoffrey (when ignoring Geoffrey's habit of pissing off upper management or insanity)? Was he merely serviceable with a few great plays?

What do you all think of the season's big play (like Hamlet or Macbeth) taking over the themes of the season and plots of the play and the actual show intertwining? Do you love this aspect or is it "cheap"?

Slings & Arrows Season 2 Discussion



Episode 1: Season's End

Episode 2: Fallow Time

Discuss!

So I just finished watching the first episode of the second season and upon the mention of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" I decided to look up that play. Google suggested a production in Stratford, the town New Burbage is based on. I found this review and it's kind of weird, but interesting to see a similar theatre reviewed. Here it is:arts.nationalpost.com/2012/06/16/theatre-review-youre-a-good-man-charlie-brown-and-the-pirates-of-penzance/

Do you remember how one of the first comments made about this series (back on the old site) was me comparing this show to Party Down? Just wondering.

And I understood the characters more when I realized how close the show was emulating the play for the season. But are they too cliche? I don't know. I see it more like they're just taking people they know from theater. It's one thing to have a TV/film cliche that's been played to death; it's another to do a character derived from reality. Nichols is a batshit insane director, but I'm pretty sure they based him off of a couple directors they know.

Thoughts on the first episode of season 2:
This is one of my least favorite episodes of the series. I think it's because it feels like the denouement of season 1, and all I wanted was to get to Macbeth and the new season. One thing people like to say about "HBO dramas" is how the second to the last episode is the most climatic and the last is dying up some of the loose ends. This one spills over into the next season. Does that make this feel out of place to anyone else? Just curious. (I mean, the episode is titled "Season's End" and it's the first episode of season 2.)

Second episode:
Here is where Macbeth really starts to get rolling. Quick question: Is there any reason this episode is set at Christmas? Is it just so the skull will have a funny hat?

There was a lot of table-setting, but I guess I didn't mind it. I loved seeing the group of interns destroy the place, and that poor super-devoted intern break down after saying, "Sorry". Actually, I love it whenever anyone says a Canadian sorry. I love the kids' performance of Macbeth and, again, another breakdown, but this time from the artistic director of the theater. I can't imagine what the teachers thought about him after that. He's mentally unhinged, and the play is really gnawing at him. One more thing to love: the guy playing Macbeth. I don't like the Froghammer plot so much, however. Am I alone in that?

SBT, I'm curious as to what you think about this farce vs. realism as the show moves forward, because I find it evolves into one of the most moving dramas from here on forward. Of course, there will always be farcical subplots, because that's embedded into the show's DNA.

As for some general thoughts, I agree that the S2 premiere episode feels like a S1 finale, however, that's how the show likes to operate. How did S1 open? With the company wrapping up A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Geoffrey deciding to stick around for awhile... And how did S2 open? With them wrapping on Hamlet, and Geoffrey deciding to stick around some more. The six episode formula creates a very meticulous pacing, and the premiere episodes for Slings & Arrows serve as table setting, as it announces the themes and situations the characters will find themselves in over the next five episodes. In this regard, to borrow a metaphor from the theater, the seasons premieres act more like a table reading than an opening night.

The second episode though, has a sequence that I absolutely love: where Geoffrey watches the children's production of Macbeth. It's chilling, uncomfortable, somewhat comical, but it's unlike anything I've ever seen on television.

Wow, good early call on the Party Down similarities, Capt.!

I don't know why the episode was set at Christmas (maybe because it's the end of the theater season - which, frankly, I thought would be in May or June). Or maybe they just wanted to have an excuse to put a funny hat on the skull, like you say.

Whoa, how late am I to the discussion?

Like Blicero, I'm going to focus mostly on ep. 4 (I'm lazy, OK?), which I really loved. I particularly appreciate the show's ability to turn what can easily seem like a goofy plot device (Geoffrey's conversations with Oliver) into something genuinely troubling and disturbing. The interactions between Geoffrey and Oliver have increasingly straddled this really fine line between funny, sad and scary, and it's great that the show can go to darker places without losing its breezy, funny vibe.

I'm slightly less convinced by the Darren Nichols bits. I'm not sure the show can do satire as well as it does farce and comedy. Or maybe I'm biased. The thing is, I've grown up watching plays like the gender reversed Romeo and Juliet Darren tries (I've seen an all female King Lear just this winter; 5 hour trilogy of ancient Greek and and Latin plays, done entirely in Greek and Latin; a Ubu/ Macbeth combo, and many more such weird things), and I can safely say that there is as much (if not more) emotion to be mined from this kind of productions as there is from the more classically-minded ones the Burbage puts out. Yes, I know that Darren is meant to be an effete caricature (and I actually kinda like Don McKellar for once), but I'm beginning to be a little bothered by the show's bias toward the old fashioned and the staid (it doesn't help that the glimpses we get of Geoffrey's productions aren't really all that interesting).

As for Froghammer, that just keeps getting weirder and weirder and testing my patience. It's just not good.

P.S. I was delighted by Ellen's little Revenue Canada adventures.

The Froghammer plot does get a lot more entertaining as the season goes on and it does seem less like jabs aimed less at the novelty of the business culture. Also it's funny/sad to see Richard get so enthralled by Sanjay. You make a good point that it's basically entirely spectacle with no essence, not only like Darren Nichol's production, but Oliver's Macbeth as well. That being said, I still think some of the humour is supposed to come from the point semi-bored torontonian brought up:

Which I think is true and goes back to my original point of being annoyed with comedy that does  try to mine humour simply out of something being different. Thankfully this season doesn't rely on that nearly as much as I thought!

Me too, SBT. ME. TOO.

Yes, we are. I have been really bad at checking this place, because I tend to think nobody comes here anymore. However, give me til tomorrow morning, and I'll have watched the episodes (again), and posted the official starting post for the last two episodes. And we can have a Season 2 blowout!

Since I already had some notes typed up from a few weeks ago, I'll post them:
Episode 5:
Romeo and Juliet have sex. Romeo's first girl. He's gay. So uhhh ... alright.

Love Geoffrey mistaking the guy's voice for Oliver's

Before Geoffrey was saying "just nail the soliloques" and now he's worried that the new Macbeth Jerry doesn't know the lines when he talks to other people.

Geoffrey is telling Jerry to ride the uncertainty he's feeling because that's how Macbeth felt too. Similar to what he said last play to Hamlet.

"You sound exactly like Oliver."

Sanjay is packing a box on the phone call. Yet he's as confident as ever.

Jerry pukes in his room while talking to Geoffrey. Just like Hamlet, again.

Brian, who criticized Geoffrey, said Henry was in danger of becoming a hack.

It was so pleasing to see Jerry succeed.

The white goatee'd fat guy makes yet another great point. You live your whole acting life hoping for this group of actors putting on a play like this with a director who cares as much as Geoffrey obviously does.

I don't hate the tax storyline, but I can see how other people could. It doesn't have too much of a point.

Sanjay is playing Catch Me If You Can. He was pretending to be an ad man, a Don Draper-level performance of confidence.

Henry's such a dick.

"You're happy because your life is so simple." Ellen, you're so nice.

"He's a dentist ... from HELL ... afax."