Shakespeare and the World of Slings & Arrows

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 clef about Canadas 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 Brooks widely renowned account of modern theatre, The Empty Space, mirroring Brooks 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.