Mini dramas from Shields’ stories never get to where they want to go

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/03/2004 (8124 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE short story. The short series. Curiously, but perhaps not surprisingly, the odds are always pretty long against having these formats make a big impact on the small screen.

The latest project to give it a try is The Shields Stories, a locally produced anthology series adapted from short stories by the late Carol Shields, which debuts tonight at 9:30 on the W network.

Co-produced by Winnipeg-based Original Pictures and Toronto’s Shaftesbury Films — the same partnership that brought The Atwood Stories to television last season — this six-part series draws material from a trio of short-story collections Shields produced at various stages of her literary career.

Like the stories themselves, these mini-dramas are self-contained, self-defined tales. If anything, the TV adaptations are even more disparate than the Shields creations on which they’re based, because each chapter of the television series has been interpreted by a different screenwriter, a different director and a different cast of actors.

If the three instalments provided for preview are a fair indication, The Shields Stories is a sober effort that has produced fairly pleasant results but hasn’t delivered anything in the way of big dramatic moments or huge outbursts of hilarity.

Tonight’s premiere, Hazel, is a gently amusing tale about a recently widowed housewife (Sheila McCarthy) whose suddenly desperate search for full-time employment lands her a job as a kitchen-gadget pitchwoman.

The haunting/taunting presence of her dead husband (Peter Keleghan) keeps predicting that she’ll fail, but Hazel is determined to overcome her shyness and become a sales force to be reckoned with.

Director Norma Bailey uses static camera shots and boldly coloured sets to give the episode a decided retro feeling, and McCarthy plays the lead role with a likable level of nervous energy, but the story never achieves the laugh-out-loud level of amusement it seems to be seeking.

The other two episodes previewed — Various Miracles (March 30) and The Harp (April 6) — are markedly less silly than tonight’s premiere, but each employs a sort of detached sense of whimsy while searching for effective ways to visually represent the inner musings of its central character.

In the first instance, a writer’s (Sara Botsford) fight to preserve the integrity of her literary characters leads her into a series of oddly connected coincidences; in the second, a young woman (Robin Brule) is forced to consider the randomness of the universe after a harp falls from the heavens (actually, a third-storey window) and lands on her.

Like Hazel, they’re both fairly pleasant yarns, but they’re unlikely to elicit a “Wow!” from anyone who watches them. Part of the problem lies with the half-hour anthology format, which forces each installment to grapple with the need to introduce characters, establish settings and storylines and then somehow provide an interesting plot and believable resolution, all in about 22 minutes.

But like so many other anthologies that have gone before it, The Shields Stories is also a victim of its own good intentions. Its respectful rendering of these short-form literary works has resulted in more of what too much CanCon used to be — sensitive, rather earnest TV fare that seems more interested in being good for us than it is in being just plain good.

On the Avenue: Winnipeg-based filmmaker George Siamandas continues his love affair with local landmarks and his long-term relationship with U.S. public television when his latest documentary, Portage Avenue: Dreams of Castles in the Sky premieres tonight at 7 on Prairie Public TV.

Like his previous efforts, Pyramids on the Prairie, Lake Winnipeg’s Paradise Beaches and Assiniboine Park: A Park for all Seasons, this new film is an affectionate and largely nostalgic look at a familiar part of the Manitoban landscape.

Using a combination of archival images, stock video footage and recently recorded images, Siamandas recounts the history of Winnipeg’s unofficial main street from the construction of its first “skyscraper” — now known as the Childs Building — to the controversial demolition of the downtown Eaton’s store to make way for the new arena complex.

As in his past projects, Siamandas favours an upbeat tone, jaunty music and a non-controversial approach to his subject. The film’s exploration of Portage Avenue’s early history is fairly engaging, but his examination of more recent events feels a bit clunky because so little time is devoted to the seemingly endless controversies that have enveloped virtually every attempt to reclaim and revitalize the area since the early 1980s.

As a sepia-toned, warmly composed video-postcard view of Portage Avenue, Dreams of Castles in the Sky is a fairly engaging hour, but it’s not the sort of thing you’d consult while studying for your urban affairs final.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca