Slings & Arrows

[syrakusos]

The artistic director of the "New Burbage Shakespeare Festival" sees the ghost of the last director. In fact, Oliver (the ghost) helps Jeffrey (the director) work his way through the difficulties, while being somewhat difficult himself.

This is not going to pass for "bootleg romanticism" by any stretch of the imagination. However, my wife and I found it compelling, interesting, and thoughtful. The characters are about what you would expect from a troupe of actors. It is a play within a play about putting on a play. The story opens with the cast party after the close of Midsummer's Night. The first season then brings us Hamlet. The second is about putting on MacBeth. In the third season, William Hutt plays a dying actor whose final wish is to pay King Lear, which he does, though not at all as expected, with many twists and turns as we struggle with his struggle with cancer. Hutt himself died of leukemia shortly thereafter.

Among the understories, the financial manager finds and then loses his artistic integrity. Everything is always about values, is it not?

All I can say is, "Try one." It might be an acquired taste.

[caroljane]

MEM, I am already a cultist. I have watched the whole series twice. Already a Paul Gross fan after Due South, I became moreso. And I love the theme duet "Call the Understudy"- I have actually met one of the old troupers who play and sing it!

The first episode is a TV classic.

Also features a teenage Rachel McAdams, luscious and vibrant in a first big role.

edit forgot to mention, it is also brilliantly funny