The greatest joke of HBO’s was the inability of aging fictional CEO Logan Roy to name his replacement. Talk about the ultimate failure! But there are egomaniacal men who will go to their graves before envisioning a world that exists without them. That’s the animating throughline in the three-part HBO documentary “Ren Faire” (which premiered last week and concludes Sunday) about the tenuous future of the Texas Renaissance Festival.
A real-life, downmarket version of “Succession,” it offers a claustrophobic portrait of the festival’s eccentric and off-putting founder George Coulam and the three subordinates — two men and a woman, tidily echoing “Succession’s” Kendall, Roman and Shiv — whose sweaty hopes and dreams of Ren faire domination are dependent on Coulam’s mercurial moods. Who will wrest control from the old man, if anyone? Director Lance Oppenheim (whose credits include the recent Hulu documentary “Spermworld”) takes a stylized approach, giving the documentary an untrustworthy and manipulated feel that suggests a number of moments were staged. But it also seems likely that Coulam is too peculiar and stubborn — too lacking in self-awareness — to be anyone other than who he is, whether a camera is there or not.
Founded 50 years ago, tens of thousands of people attend the fest on any given day. Located an hour outside of Houston, it’s a moneymaker. But Coulam is ready to retire and he’s looking to sell the whole shebang for $60 million.
