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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWill\u201d proved me wrong, and I couldn\u2019t be happier.<\/p>\n
Tonight, Monday, July 31, at 11 p.m. ET\/PT, TNT\u2019s Shakespeare drama \u201cWill\u201d <\/a>hits the halfway point of its 10-episode first-season run. All the episodes are currently available via On Demand and at TNTDrama.com<\/a>, if you have a cooperating cable provider.<\/p>\n After seeing the first four episodes<\/a>, I was intrigued but didn\u2019t hold out much hope for the show \u2014 but I ended the run as a fan.<\/p>\n First, some background for those who haven\u2019t seen it yet (and let me say up front, it is for adult audiences ONLY).<\/p>\n \u201cWill\u201d stars British newcomer Laurie Davidson as a twentysomething William Shakespeare, just starting his career in a punk-rock version of 16th Century Elizabethan London that includes very 21st Century clothes, makeup, hair and music \u2014 plus some language and sexual content.<\/p>\n The creator is Craig Pearce, the writing partner of Baz Luhurmann, who\u2019s used a similar mash-up in such films as \u201cRomeo + Juliet\u201d and \u201cMoulin Rouge.\u201d<\/p>\n The show\u2019s boldest claim is that William Shakespeare was a secret Catholic (not all scholars believe that, but many do); that he was involved with underground Jesuit priest and writer Father Robert Southwell, played by Max Bennett (they surely knew and were influenced by each other, and may have been cousins, but more distant than the show implies); and that both these things put his life in constant peril.<\/p>\n Will\u2019s chief frenemy is fellow playwright Christopher \u201cKit\u201d Marlowe (Jamie Campbell Bower), portrayed as a tortured agnostic\/atheist\/Catholic seeker, a gay sexual libertine, and a spy for the Queen\u2019s chief Catholic-hunter, Richard Topcliffe (Ewan Bremner).<\/p>\n As outrageous as the Kit character may seem, it\u2019s probably no more outrageous than Marlowe\u2019s real life<\/a>, which was brimful of sexual and political escapades. Bower plays him as a blend of David Bowie and Mick Jagger, but Marlowe probably lived a life even more daring and salacious\u00a0than either rock star.<\/p>\n At the beginning, the biggest fail seems to be the character of Alice Burbage (Olivia DeJonge) \u2014 the daughter of theater owner James Burbage (Colm Meaney) and sister of womanizing actor Richard Burbage (Mattias Inwood) \u2014 whose feminist escapades seem thrown in to please modern sensibilities. But her story takes a startling turn.<\/p>\n At this point, linear viewers have only seen a few episodes, whereas some of the audience may have seen some or all of the series. This makes it a bit tricky to have a lengthy discussion about the themes without acting as spoiler.<\/p>\n So, I\u2019ll hold the big conversation for September, but I recommend that mature Catholics overlook some of the show\u2019s racier elements and hang in.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s why \u2026<\/p>\n Unlike the even more racy and violent \u201cGame of Thrones,\u201d \u201cWill\u201d is rooted in the reality of the Elizabethan Age. And it\u2019s resolutely about<\/em>\u00a0real things \u2014 Catholicism, conscience, censorship and art \u2014 and the essence of the setting is\u00a0based in fact.<\/p>\n Modern trappings and multicultural casting notwithstanding, Elizabethan London was as rough, noisy, raw, filthy, spectacular, squalid and freewheeling as the London in \u201cWill.\u201d Most depictions of the Elizabethan era are substantially sanitized for our (and the queen\u2019s) protection.<\/p>\n One thing often scrubbed from movies about the Virgin Queen is Elizabeth I\u2019s vicious persecution of Catholics<\/a>, which some TV reviewers of \u201cWill\u201d have poo-poohed, saying it wasn\u2019t that bad. In conversation last week at a press event with TNT\/TBS head Kevin Reilly (more on that later), he disputed that, saying, \u201cit was that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n From an article in the U.K. Telegraph<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cWithout torture I know we shall not prevail,\u201d Elizabeth\u2019s spymaster, Sir Thomas Walsingham, told her chief minister, Lord Burghley; and the chief torturer, Richard Topcliffe, as sadistic as any officer of the Gestapo or the Soviet NKVD, delighted in his vile work. He raped one prisoner, Anne Bellamy, after she had been racked and betrayed 26 people, including her parents. All was far from being sweetness and light in the first Elizabethan Age.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If Shakespeare was indeed a Catholic, he was deep in enemy territory, surrounded by informers and spies.<\/p>\n The show returns over and over again to Will\u2019s struggle with his Catholic faith, as he succumbs to temptation, then is overwhelmed with guilt and a sense of duty.<\/p>\n Anyone who\u2019s ever left the warm embrace of family and parish and headed to the bright lights of the big city knows all too well how quickly and hard one can fall. But the question is, how do you get back up?<\/p>\n Will\u2019s faith suffuses his work, along with his essential goodness. Ironically, that\u2019s irresistible to Marlowe, who subscribes to the self-destructive notion that an artist must live on the edge of morality, must dance with dark forces, in order to create. A light lives within Will, and no matter how far down Marlowe sinks, he keeps turning back to that light.<\/p>\n At one point, Marlowe asks Will how he continues to believe. Will answers, \u201cI can\u2019t stop. It\u2019s a sickness,\u201d and Marlowe says, \u201cInfect me.\u201d<\/p>\n In contrast to the tortured Kit, Topcliffe is a complete villain, and yet, there are reasons why he\u2019s the way he is. Will seeks to understand the monster inside the man, without excusing a single bit of the evil Topcliffe causes. That understanding could help him bring down Topcliffe in a dramatic and unusual way.<\/p>\n By the end of 10 episodes, each character has passed through a kind of hell and emerged on the other side \u2014 some chastened, some gifted with faith, some lost, some redeemed, and some apparently irrevocably damned.<\/p>\n Even characters that start out cartoonish have their moments of real human heart and dignity.<\/p>\n Conversely, Southwell, who was canonized by Pope Paul VI, is made a full human being. He\u2019s no hypocrite, and he means no harm, but his missionary zeal comes with a cost, usually to those who protect him (but\u00a0in real life, Southwell was eventually martyred<\/a>).<\/p>\n Honestly, the least interesting parts of \u201cWill\u201d are the anachronistic modern elements. The deeper I got in, the more I thought of them as a bone thrown to the Millennial audience, that the show could easily have done without.<\/p>\n I was more moved and touched by \u201cWill\u201d than I expected. The depictions of Catholicism are respectful and affecting \u2014 we see one character essentially fall in love with the Faith while witnessing a sacrament.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an irony that Catholicism, usually a stately and introspective faith, often fares best in stories that are done in bold strokes, with danger, violence and a stark battle between good and evil.<\/p>\n Count \u201cWill\u201d along with \u201cThe Young Pope\u201d and \u201cThe Exorcist\u201d as deeply Catholic shows for which I had no hope, but which won me over.<\/p>\nIT\u2019S ROOTED IN REALITY AND\u00a0ABOUT<\/em> SOMETHING \u2026<\/strong><\/h4>\n
THE DANGER IS ALSO REAL<\/h4>\n
WILL\u2019S CATHOLIC STRUGGLE BETWEEN VIRTUE AND TEMPTATION IS REAL<\/h4>\n
WILL\u2019S WORK AND FAITH ARE INSEPARABLE<\/h4>\n
EVERYBODY GETS TO BE HUMAN<\/h4>\n
THE MODERN TRAPPINGS ARE ULTIMATELY JUST TINSEL<\/h4>\n
IN CONCLUSION \u2026<\/h4>\n