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Chapter 6 - Re-shaping Old Course in a Country New: Producing Nation, Culture and King Lear in Slings and Arrows

from Part II - Lear en Abyme: Metatheatre and the Screen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2019

Victoria Bladen
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Sarah Hatchuel
Affiliation:
Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier
Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin
Affiliation:
Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier
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Summary

Set in a fictional Shakespeare festival, Slings and Arrows, a short-lived Canadian series produced on a constrained budget, is often cited by US and Canadian critics and fans as one of the best television series of recent decades. The three seasons revolve around a main-stage production of a Shakespearean tragedy (Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear, respectively), the themes of which infuse hilarious and heartbreaking backstage plots interweaving the festival’s actors, directors, stage crew and business staff. The main arc of the show involves the festival’s struggle to stay culturally relevant and financially solvent, resulting in a paean to the power and importance of live theatre. Even as it knowingly winks at its own status as a television series, Slings and Arrows – which, in the decade since it originally aired, has garnered far more viewers and far greater critical acclaim through rebroadcasts, DVD releases and streaming digital availability – embodies the tension between the ephemeral nature of live theatre and the lasting media of film and television. This chapter conjoins an examination of the tension between television and live theatre with the exploration of culture; ‘culture’ both in terms of ‘high culture’ artistic productions such as Shakespearean theatre, and national culture.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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References

Works Cited

Ashley, L. R. N., ‘Recent Publications on Elizabethan England and Related Fields’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 68 (2006): 573610.Google Scholar
Klett, E., ‘Shakespearean Authority and Emotional Realism in Slings and Arrows’, Early Modern Studies Journal 5 (2013): www.uta.edu/english/emsjournal/articles/klett.html (accessed 9 September 2017).Google Scholar
Ormsby, R., ‘“This Famous Duke of Milan of Whom So Often I Have Heard Renown”: William Hutt at the Stratford and New Burbage Festivals’, Canadian Theatre Review 141 (2010): 1015.Google Scholar
Osborne, L. E., ‘Serial Shakespeare: Intermedial Performance and the Outrageous Fortunes of Slings & Arrows’, Borrowers and Lenders 6.2 (Fall/Winter 2011): www.borrowers.uga.edu/783090/show (accessed 9 September 2017).Google Scholar
Pittman, L. M., Authorizing Shakespeare on Film and Television: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Adaptation (New York: Peter Lang, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothwell, K. S., A History of Shakespeare on Screen: a Century of Film and Television (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
VanDerWerff, T., ‘The Slings & Arrows Creators Discuss Their Writing Process and the Show’s Future’ AV Club 31 (May 2013): www.avclub.com/article/the-islings-arrowsi-creators-discuss-their-writing-98410 (accessed 9 September 2017).Google Scholar

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