Slings and Arrows, Smells and Bells

Over the past couple of years, with the aid of Netflix, I’ve been working my way through the Canadian television series Slings and Arrows. The show focuses on the on-stage and off-stage lives of the New Burbage Festival, a sort of fictionalized version of the Stratford Festival in Western Ontario. In real life and on the show, the Festival’s main fare is Shakespeare, and each season of Slings of Arrows centers around a production of a Shakespearean tragedy: Hamlet (Season 1), Macbeth (Season 2), and King Lear (Season 3).

In each season, much of the humor and pathos comes from seeing how the characters’ situations begin to mirror those of characters in the play. In the first season, New Burbage’s new artistic director, Geoffrey Tennant, is haunted by the ghost of the former artistic director (and Geoffrey’s former mentor) Oliver Wells, as Hamlet is haunted by the ghost of his murdered father. (The parallels aren’t absolute, though, as Oliver is not killed by his usurping brother, but rather accidentally hit by a truck bearing the slogan “Canada’s Best Hams.” If you don’t find this funny, you probably won’t like Slings and Arrows.) No one but Geoffrey can see Oliver’s ghost, and thus everyone begins to wonder if Geoffrey is mad, if he’s just pretending to be mad, etc., just as every high school senior is made to wonder the same about Hamlet when discussing the play in English class.

Season 3, which I’ve just finished watching, deals with appropriate King Lear themes of aging, loss, and father-figures. One of the subplots, however, focuses on the conflict between the cast of Lear and the cast of the simultaneously running musical East Hastings (think: a fictional, Canadian version of Rent). The Shakespeareans are classically trained and eloquent, if neurotic; the musical cast is boisterous, fun-loving, and flaky. When the musical becomes a hit and the Lear production fails to open, due to the inconsistencies of its lead actor, the Lear cast is forced to vacate the main stage and move to New Burbage’s smaller venue. The musical has all the appearances and accessories of success, while Lear is cast out into the cold, just as King Lear himself is within the play.

As someone who loves both Shakespeare and Broadway musicals, I have to admit that I wanted to see more reconciliation between the musical-people and the Shakespeare-people. The division between the two camps reminded me in some ways of disagreements over worship styles in the church. Traditionalists look down upon chorus-singing, hand-raising churchgoers as “happy-clappy,” while these “low church” worshipers view their “high church” brothers and sisters (who somewhat proudly refer to themselves as “smells and bells” sorts, referring to the incense and bells that accompany more liturgical services) as stiff, legalistic, and snooty. Both sides have a point. Both sides bring people to Christ. And yet they still shoot insults at each other across the walls they have raised.

There’s a moment in Slings and Arrows when Paul, the young actor playing Edgar in King Lear, intending to play a prank on the East Hastings cast, sneaks backstage with a stink-bomb. However, he hears Megan, the musical’s female lead, singing her solo and is transfixed by the power of her voice. The song itself (“Tryin’ to Be Heard”) is pretty maudlin, as Slings and Arrows’ creators have clearly intended, but they do let us see why Paul is impressed by Megan’s singing. Paul and Megan fall in love (or at least “hook up”) and there seems to be some hope for reconciliation between the two camps. However, because the parallels to King Lear require the Lear cast to be betrayed and cast out, the potential reconciliation never occurs, and the musical and its cast become the villains. Slings and Arrows clearly affirms the authenticity and integrity of the “true” theater people, as opposed to those who have sold themselves out for commercial success.

So I wished for reconciliation but understood why, given the structure of the TV series, it didn’t happen. However, I was surprised, when I looked up Slings and Arrows on Wikipedia this morning, to find that some of its writers and actors were behind the Tony-winning 2006 Broadway musical The Drowsy Chaperone. These people don’t look down on musicals after all; they write them! It seems that one can love Shakespeare and Broadway. Maybe there’s hope for reconciling “high” and “low” culture within the church, too.

Note: Though I greatly enjoy Slings and Arrows, I should mention that it’s not for all viewers. The language alone would qualify it for an “R” rating if it were an American movie. There’s also a good deal of sexuality (no nudity, though, as far as I recall) and drug use. Moreover, according to my husband, Slings and Arrows isn’t that funny unless you’ve spent a good deal of time around theater people-or at least Shakespeare’s plays. I admit I may be biased, as I’ve spent a good many years of my life around both, but I find the show hilarious and occasionally moving, as in this season, when Geoffrey weighs the limits of compassion as he tries to grant a dying man’s wish. I also admire that, with the end of Season 3, the series brought things to a definite end. Like “true” theater people, our Canadian and British cousins in TV end shows while they’re still good, rather than extending their run for further profit. Of course, maybe that’s just because they don’t make any money in the first place.