My thoughts about movies and TV shows I've been watching

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Sunday, November 28, 2010

Should a manic artist get psychiatric help?: Slings & Arrows

"Slings & Arrows" Season 2 (episode 3) picks up two plot lines: on the one hand, we watch Jeffrey and Ellen, the director and leading actress (and actually married in "real life") become a cozy domestic couple in Ellen's cute, spacious house - she cooking breakfast for him, waiting up for him, etc. They no longer seem like eccentric, temperamental theater people - more like a sitcom family from a 50s show. What's happening here? Well, the interesting element is that it's increasingly evident that Jeffrey is delusional. His "conversations" with the late director Oliver are useful to him in that they give him ideas about staging Macbeth, but it's also clear that these ar no longer part of a dramatic convention but are a manifestation of Jeffrey's instability - as is obvious when Ellen sneaks into the theater at night and we see the conversations from her POV: which is, Jeffrey walking around a bare stage talking to himself. As with other artist-geniuses, the question is does he need help, will he get help, should he get help? Will help cut off his creativity? Or will his delusions become a mania that will ruin both his art and his life? The tone remains comical and light-hearted so I can't quite see how the series will manage this issue. Meanwhile, insufferable egotist playing Macbeth is very funny, as he moves in on Ellen, and we're getting a subplot developing of an R&J production led by the idiotic director from Season 1 (obviously a fan favorite, whom they wrote into Season 2) and the very funny pr shop ("a brothel of ideas") that has come up with a crazy ad campaign for the festival. Richard, the business manager, remains the funniest guy in the series.

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