What's Going On With Shakespeare In The Park's Production Of 'Julius Caesar'?
Shakespeare in the Park, a venerable New York City institution that offers free outdoor theater to anyone willing to wait in line for tickets, lost the backing of two major sponsors over the weekend in the wake of a conservative outcry over this summer's production of "Julius Caesar." Here's what's going on.
Shakespeare In The Park's 'Julius Caesar' Portrays Caesar As A Trump-Like Figure
This year's production of 'Julius Caesar,' which officially opens tonight after almost three weeks of previews, is a clear Trump allegory. In 'Julius Caesar,' the title character gets assassinated at the beginning of Act III.
The stabbing is brutally realistic; on the night I saw the play, a full moon rising over the park turned the cloud-mottled sky into a mask of evil, as if nature were colluding as co-conspirator. Or perhaps my imagination was enflamed by the unusually frank parallels Eustis sketched out between Rome upon the return of Caesar's triumph over Pompey and Donald Trump's triumph over the electoral college.
Whichever the case, the production is meant to provoke, and there have been reports of at least one audience member expressing shock over this act of lethal violence against a Presidential facsimile.
[Deadline]
Pretty much everyone with any appreciation of artistic nuance agrees that the production does not in any way endorse assassinating Donald Trump.
Even a cursory reading of the play, the kind that many American teenagers give it in high school, is enough to show that it does not advocate assassination. Shakespeare portrays the killing of Caesar by seven of his fellow senators as an unmitigated disaster for Rome, no matter how patriotic the intentions.
Conservative News Outlets Have Condemned The Production For The Graphic Assassination Scene
Breitbart and Fox News are among the platforms that have stoked conservative outrage over the production. On "Fox & Friends" on Sunday, Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth led a call for sponsors to withdraw funding, saying "Is this not a responsibility for the public to say, 'if you can use our dollars to depict the assassination of the president, we're not going to stand for that?'" First son Donald Trump Jr. amplified the message with a tweet asking, "I wonder how much of this 'art' is funded by taxpayers?'"
The National Endowment for the Arts, which has supported Shakespeare in the Park productions in the past, released a statement clarifying that it did not provide any funding to "Julius Caesar."
The National Endowment for the Arts makes grants to nonprofit organizations for specific projects. In the past, the New York Shakespeare Festival has received project-based NEA grants to support performances of Shakespeare in the Park by the Public Theater. However, no NEA funds have been awarded to support this summer's Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar and there are no NEA funds supporting the New York State Council on the Arts' grant to Public Theater or its performances.
[National Endowment For The Arts]
In Response To The Outcry, Delta Airlines And Bank Of America Have Withdrawn Funding
Delta Airlines was the first to end its sponsorship, announcing yesterday that it would no longer be "the official airline of The Public Theater," the organization that produces Shakespeare In The Park.
While responding to customer complaints on Sunday, the airline tweeted, "No matter what your political stance may be, the graphic staging of Julius Caesar at this summer's Free Shakespeare in the Park does not reflect Delta Air Lines' values." Delta continued, "Their artistic and creative direction crossed the line on the standards of good taste. We have notified them of our decision to end our sponsorship as the official airline of The Public Theater effective immediately."
[Vulture]
Bank of America announced that it would withdraw funding from "Julius Caesar."
Bank of America followed hours later, saying it would withdraw financial support from the production of "Julius Caesar" but would not end its financial relationship with the theater, which a bank spokeswoman, Susan Atran, said had lasted for 11 years.
"The Public Theater chose to present 'Julius Caesar' in a way that was intended to provoke and offend," Ms. Atran said. "Had this intention been made known to us, we would have decided not to sponsor it. We are withdrawing our funding for this production."
Productions Of Shakespeare Plays That Allude To Modern Politics Are Not Uncommon
Vox points out that "Julius Caesar" in particular has been interpreted time and time again with modern themes in mind.
In 1937, at the age of 21, Orson Welles staged a groundbreaking version with the Mercury Theater in which the set and costumes were specifically designed to make the audience think of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. In 1973, the BBC produced a modern adaptation of the play called Heil Caesar, ostensibly set in an unnamed country. In 1984, New York's Riverside Theater Company mounted a production of Julius Caesar set in modern Washington, DC, where America is on the verge of handing its popular leader a lifelong presidency. And a 2012 Royal Shakespeare Company production set the play in a modern African state.
[Vox]
In 2012, a New York theater called The Acting Company put on a production of "Julius Caesar" that portrayed Caesar as a politician who resembled Barack Obama.
Shakespeare in the Park's production of "The Taming Of The Shrew" last summer also poked fun at Trump.
The play begins with a curtain-raiser in which an unseen announcer with a suspiciously Trump-like accent introduces audiences to the contestants of the Miss Lombardi pageant. "They're all lovely girls," he says, "amazing, unbelievable."
And its production of "Troilus And Cressida" last summer was set up as an allegory about the War in Afghanistan.
The setting alternates between Troy and the Greek camp sitting right outside the walls. (David Zinn's minimalist set is grimly utilitarian.) The Greeks have been laying siege to the city for seven years with little to show for it. American audiences will have no problem sizing up the situation as a quagmire, even without the production's modern-day setting, complete with tan-colored fatigues that would not look out of place in Afghanistan.
In A Statement, The Production's Director Emphasizes That 'Julius Caesar' Is About Threats To Democracy
In an open letter about the play, Oskar Eustis writes that "Julius Caesar" is a "warning parable" about assassination.
Julius Caesar can be read as a warning parable to those who try to fight for democracy by undemocratic means.
To fight the tyrant does not mean imitating him…
JULIUS CAESAR is about how fragile democracy is. The institutions that we have grown up with, that we have inherited from the struggle of many generations of our ancestors, can be swept away in no time at all.
On Twitter, progressive pundit Chris Hayes was a little less restrained.
