Isn't that how Friends started?
Amanda runs into the wilderness and stumbles upon a Renaissance Faire, one of those summertime celebrations of all things Elizabethan -- well, the fun things anyway. There's boozing, dancing, craft booths, jousts, swordplay. Workers and many of the guests wear Elizabethan costumes and stay strictly in character. There are classes in how to speak, wave, bow, and pretend not to be aware of modern technology.
At first Amanda is dismissive of the daffy, reality deprived weirdos, but soon she realizes that her world is equally reality deprived. Besides, she was an English major, and likes this Renaissance stuff. When her mother and sister show up to take her home, she refuses. She gets a job at the Faire, and immerses herselves in the lives and problems of other "rennies" (faire professionals).
I'm surprised that there are so many of them, considering that they work only on weekends during the summer. It can't be a full time gig. But:
Delilah (Mary Hollis Inboden) has an act involving doing laundry and making sexual innuendos.
Maggie (Seanna Kofoed) has been playing Queen Elizabeth for over 20 years, and is worried about aging and losing her power.
The female sexual empowerment stuff gets a little distasteful at times. I fast-forwarded through some discussions of vaginas. Did you know that they come in different sizes and shapes? I do, now.
But the colorful interactions among the characters, both in the Faire and back home on the Upper East Side, are worth sitting through some "boob and bush" discussions.
Besides, just about everyone on the show is gay, bisexual, or pansexual. There's even a three-way relationship between Natasha (Sophie von Hasselberg), Stephen (Ross Bryant), and Phil (Edgar Blackmon).
And there's a lot of beefcake. Most of the shirtless actors are playing scruffy, unwashed Elizabethan underlings, but there are also some buffed physiques about.
The first season is up on Vudu and Amazon Prime. I'm watching slowly, an episode every few days. I don't want it to end.
Thanks for the heads-up! As a former festie, this looks right up my alley.
ReplyDeleteMost of the actors at a festival have "real jobs" during the week, and the Festival is more of a hobby. There are some who do the festival circuit --it starts in the early spring in Florida and works its way north. I did this one season when I was twenty. What memories. I worked for a puppet theater. We did the show on the weekend and the rest of the week was spent goofing off. Lots of great parties.
I stopped doing it because it is very physically exhausting. Being outside all say in the hot sun --or the rain and mud-- takes its toll. And the owner of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival is a COMPLETE JACKASS. Shady AF. And cheap.
I've never been to one, but the Faire on tv did seem a bit more elaborate than what one might find in real life. Permanent kitchen and shower facilities, full-time jobs, open all summer instead of just for a couple of weekends.
DeleteThe MN Renaissance Fest has permanent kitchens. You can have a multi-course meal (Feast of Fantasy) with all you can drink ale in Bad Manor.There were shower facilities in the campground when I worked there, but I think they were lost to the mining operation that currently surrounds the festival grounds. There are full-time jobs for the crew that puts the Faire on, but no full-time acting jobs. Most of the half-timbered village is permanent. There is a stone Irish cottage, a water mill, even a working bakery designed and built by the Children's Theater. It will all have to be torn down or moved when the lease expires and the mining takes over the site.
DeleteAlso, most shows run for more than just a couple weekends. Minnesota runs seven weekends.
Deletehttp://www.renaissancefest.com/#
I just watched the first four episodes and it does capture the look and feel of working at a Renaissance Festival. Especially the heavy drinking and the sexually charged atmosphere (which has been written about in the local papers). The MN Festival is a lot more substantial than the one depicted on American Princess, but it has been around for close to 50 years so there's that. I'm really enjoying the show, thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteI'll have to go to the Minnesota Faire next year.
DeleteIt runs Saturday-Sundays through the end of September. They also do a Friday show on September 27th.
DeleteBrock Harris started out as model- he looks like he should have been in some Corbin Fisher videos
ReplyDelete