Willy Wonka meets “King Lear” in HBO’s wild new docuseries “Ren Faire.”
is another in a long line of docuseries about wildly strange subcultures and their eccentric, cutthroat, and self-destructive inhabitants. In this case, that milieu is the Texas Renaissance Festival, the country’s largest such event, which takes place each October and November in Todd Mission,. As director Lance Oppenheim’s three-part non-fiction affair lays out, both the theme park and its surrounding town were created by George Coulam, who’s known throughout his fiefdom as King George.
King George talks about how he wants to finally find love and settle down for a normal life filled with copious sex, since his goal is to die with an erection . Given this fixation on his phallus, it’s no surprise that King George fancies himself the cock of the walk, and despite his age and his confession that he’s made a few bad mistakes over the years, he embraces his status as an irreproachable monarch whose word and wishes are law.
Director Oppenheim paints vivid portraits of these individuals and their intertwined psychodramas, and he embellishes his action by mixing verité material with scenes in which they read scripted expository lines or speak to imaginary figures . Considering that the Texas Renaissance Festival is all about 16th-century fantasy, this blend of the real and unreal suits the proceedings, although it never quite results in formally daring electricity.
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