Lance Oppenheim, a 2019 25 New Face who is something of a non-fiction poet laureate of contemporary loneliness, oddball institutional rituals, and the ways in which fantasy and reality commingle in American life, premieres his latest documentary series, Ren Faire, tonight on HBO. Produced by Elara Pictures, with executive producers including Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie and Ronnie Bronstein, the three-part series tells a Succession-like drama involving an aging “king,” George Coulam, in the midst of deciding which of his employees will take over his sprawling and lucrative Texas-based Renaissance theme park. The series follows Oppenheim’s excellent Spermworld, for which the 28-year-old director and editor Daniel Garber spoke to Vadim Rizov about. With Ren Faire, Oppenheim draws on the fact that his various subjects are all Renaissance performers and thus able to collaborate with him in theatrical visualizations. “I want to take all this stylistic stuff that we can do on our end to bring the festival to life,” Oppenheim told Variety. “How do you make a fair feel like a Ridley Scott movie or like Barry Lyndon?”

Ren Faire premieres tonight on Max.