Book contents
- Shakespeare on Screen: King Lear
- Series page
- Shakespeare on Screen: King Lear
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Series Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 Introduction: Dis-locating King Lear on Screen
- Part I Surviving Lear: Revisiting the Canon
- Part II Lear en Abyme: Metatheatre and the Screen
- Chapter 4 Filming Metatheatre: the ‘Dover Cliff’ Scene on Screen
- Chapter 5 New Ways of Looking at Lear: Changing Relationships between Theatre, Screen and Audience in Live Broadcasts of King Lear (2011–2016)
- Chapter 6 Re-shaping Old Course in a Country New: Producing Nation, Culture and King Lear in Slings and Arrows
- Part III The Genres of Lear
- Part IV Lear on the Loose: Migrations and Appropriations of Lear
- Index
- References
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
- Shakespeare on Screen: King Lear
- Series page
- Shakespeare on Screen: King Lear
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Series Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 Introduction: Dis-locating King Lear on Screen
- Part I Surviving Lear: Revisiting the Canon
- Part II Lear en Abyme: Metatheatre and the Screen
- Chapter 4 Filming Metatheatre: the ‘Dover Cliff’ Scene on Screen
- Chapter 5 New Ways of Looking at Lear: Changing Relationships between Theatre, Screen and Audience in Live Broadcasts of King Lear (2011–2016)
- Chapter 6 Re-shaping Old Course in a Country New: Producing Nation, Culture and King Lear in Slings and Arrows
- Part III The Genres of Lear
- Part IV Lear on the Loose: Migrations and Appropriations of Lear
- Index
- References
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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- Shakespeare on Screen: King Lear , pp. 93 - 108Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019