Slings & Arrows, starring Susan Coyne, Paul Gross, Don McKellar, and Mark McKinney as members of the New Burbage Theatre Festival, was heralded by television critics as one of the best shows ever produced and one of the finest depictions of life in classical theatre. Shakespeare scholars, however, have been ambivalent about the series, at times even hostile.
In Shakespeare and the World of “Slings & Arrows” Gary Kuchar situates the three-season series in its cultural and intellectual contexts. More than a roman à clef about Canada’s Stratford Festival, he shows, it is a privileged window onto major debates within Shakespeare studies and a drama that raises vital questions about the role of the arts in society. Kuchar reads the television show – ever fluctuating between faith and doubt in the power of drama – as an allegory of Peter Brook’s widely renowned account of modern theatre, The Empty Space, mirroring Brook’s distinction between holy theatre, a quasi-sacred vocation, and deadly theatre, a momentary entertainment.
Combining contextualized interpretations of the series with subtle formalist readings, Kuchar explains how Slings & Arrows participates in a broader recuperation of humanist approaches to Shakespeare in contemporary scholarship. The result is a demonstration of how and why Shakespeare continues to provide not just entertainment, but equipment for living.
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- Montreal, CA
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- SHAKESPEARE AND THE WORLD OF SLINGS & ARROWS 2
- Title 4
- Copyright 5
- Dedication 6
- Contents 8
- Acknowledgments 10
- Abbreviations 12
- Introduction 16
- 1 Deadly Theatre and Holy Theatre 34
- 2 Poetic Faith 45
- 3 The Simulacra 66
- 4 Kingfisher Days 78
- 5 The Stage Is All the World 101
- 6 The Local and the Typical 129
- 7 Mimesis and Emotional Realism 140
- 8 Sold Out 153
- 9 Bardbiz 159
- 10 Being Darren Nichols 172
- 11 The Promised End 184
- Conclusion 196
- Coda: John Hirsch’s Tempest (1982) 200
- Notes 210
- Bibliography 226
- Index 240
