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Let me file that under fuck it.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

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No one could have predicted…

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Monday Evening Open Thread: What Would Some Tudor Playwright Know About the Autocratic Abuse of Power?…

Monday Evening Open Thread: What Would Some Tudor Playwright Know About the Autocratic Abuse of Power?…

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New York’s Public Theater lost financial support from two high-profile corporate donors, Delta Air Lines and Bank of America, on Sunday amid intense criticism of its production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” which depicts the assassination of a Trump-like Roman ruler.

The companies’ decisions came after days of criticism online and in right-leaning media outlets that was amplified by Donald Trump Jr., a son of the president, who appeared to call into question the theater’s funding sources on Twitter on Sunday morning…

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 play, which has been in previews since May 23, is scheduled to open Monday at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park as part of the Public Theater’s free Shakespeare in the Park festival.

“Its depiction of a petulant, blondish Caesar in a blue suit, complete with gold bathtub and a pouty Slavic wife, takes onstage Trump-trolling to a startling new level,” Jesse Green of The New York Times wrote in his review.

The “vividly staged” production hews to the traditional interpretation of Shakespeare’s work, he wrote. “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.”…

Other corporate sponsors of the Public Theater, including The Times, have also faced calls on social media to denounce the play or end their relationship with the Public.

A spokeswoman for The Times said the company, which has sponsored Shakespeare in the Park for 20 years, would not change course. In a statement, the company said: ”As an institution that believes in free speech for the arts as well as the media, we support the right of the Public Theater to stage the production as they chose.”…

So, give the Grey Lady credit where due… at least the credit of understanding that Ankh-Morpork New York City dwellers and paid NYT subscribers don’t care how badly the tender fee-fees of Lord Smallgloves and his yahoo online armies are wounded.

Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  1. 1.

    ruemara

    They had no problem with it when it was a black actor during Obama’s tenure. Shit, there was the mildest of complaint when Kingsmen had Obama’s head blow up.

    I’m quite sick of humanity.

  5. 5.

    zhena gogolia

    @Tom:

    I think the directorial conceit is totally stupid.

    And last tweet: Cordelia wasn’t scheming.

  6. 6.

    debbie

    @Major Major Major Major:

    It’s also pretty bullshit that they’d risk their funding. Anyone with a single functioning brain cell would know this would outrage a very noisy segment of society. I loved going to Shakespeare in the Park, and I hope this doesn’t put the entire program into peril.

  8. 8.

    Mike in NC

    “…petulant, blondish Caesar in a blue suit, complete with gold bathtub and a pouty Slavic wife…”

    Masterful

  9. 9.

    debbie

    @debbie:

    Plus, the director should have taken his cue from the play within Hamlet. Totally subtle and over the head of anyone who didn’t know Claudius was a murderer.

  10. 10.

    Nicole

    Reminds me of the protests over The Last Temptation of Christ, back in the 1980s. I’m so tired of people who don’t read.

  11. 11.

    ThresherK

    Native strawberries are a 200 yard walk away at a farm stand. Birthday dessert for Spousal ThresherK is as yet undecided on, but the “emergency shortcake” I’m making for her now will tide her over.

  13. 13.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    Reposting for the East Cost evening contingent:

    The UNC PAWS program, which is an innovative program established under UNC’s School of Medicine to train shelter puppies to become support dogs for people with mental illnesses, is at risk of being suspended if the program cannot raise $50,000 by the end of June. Over recent years, budgets have gotten so tight that UNC’s School of Medicine has turned to crowdfunding in order to save this well-liked program.

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    Does this mean P.F Chang’s pulls funding from “Midsummer Night’s Dream” due to the chink in the wall?

  17. 17.

    Gelfling 545

    @ruemara: when my granddaughter was in fourth grade, the fourth grade classes put on Julius Caesar. The grade 4 Caesar was “assassinated”. Nobody got upset by this, understanding that it was a PLAY. You know – not real life. (The did a damn fine job of it too.)

  18. 18.

    Felonius Monk

    “Its depiction of a petulant, blondish Caesar in a blue suit, complete with gold bathtub and a pouty Slavic wife, takes onstage Trump-trolling to a startling new level,”

    Whoever thought this was a good idea must not want the theater company to survive.

  20. 20.

    ruemara

    @aimai: In complete transparency, I loved it except for 2 scenes that were utterly out of the blue crap. I could understand the Obama scene. They wanted to seem like anyone, no matter how decent, could be more seduced by wealth & power.

  21. 21.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Phase II)

    Since when were the optimates fighting for democracy? They’d spent the prior ninety years or so murdering the reforming populares, from Tiberius Gracchi, through Sulla’s proscriptions and the Cataline conspirators (what was the damned conspiracy about? only optimates seemed to know, and they weren’t telling) to the assassination of Julius Caesar. Those motherfucking optimates were like modern Republicans, but wielding real daggers.

  25. 25.

    Miss Bianca

    @Gelfling 545:

    The grade 4 Caesar was “assassinated”. Nobody got upset by this, understanding that it was a PLAY. You know – not real life.

    For some reason this story reminds me of my favorite anecdote about the gullibility of the American public – the one where the touring Shakespeare company decides to perform “Julius Caesar” in an old western boom town’s fancy opera house, and one of the audience members gets so carried away by the action that he stands up and yells, “Watch out, Mr. Caesar!” as he draws his six-gun and plugs the actor playing Brutus.

    Apocryphal, of course, but still…

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Phase II):

    Since when were the optimates fighting for democracy?

    They were fighting to continue having elections. Many people confused- and continue to confuse- elections with democracy. As I see it, elections have about the same relationship to democracy that a belief in Jesus does to Christianity: they’re a necessary condition that many people mistakenly believe is sufficient.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    @Robert Harvey:

    Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican.

    And given how widely loathed Trump is in NYC, is anyone surprised by this? FFS, the producer is the guy who brought Hamilton to Broadway — OF COURSE he fucking hates Trump!

    Can we untwist our panties long enough to say that what was sauce for the goose is just as delicious for the gander? Trump doesn’t get the kid glove treatment just because he’s a white Broflake who can’t handle criticism.

  31. 31.

    Jim Parene

    If I had the means, I would fund this company. Art is not supposed to fluff up a dictator.
    Art is at its best when someone is offended. Especially when the offended party are conservatives.

  32. 32.

    trollhattan

    Nevertheless she persisted.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a new interview called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to be fired, comments that come just before the head of the Justice Department is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate this week.

    “He needs to be fired. He needs to be taken out of that job,” Warren told “The Axe Files,” a joint podcast between CNN and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics that is hosted by David Axelrod.

    “If you’re not going to be honest during your confirmation hearing, then you ought to be gone.”

    Warren, who opposed Sessions’ nomination to the Justice Department, also noted the Senate’s vote to silence her on the floor during Sessions’ confirmation hearing. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) at the time said Warren’s comments about Sessions broke Senate rules that say lawmakers cannot “directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

  33. 33.

    Morzer

    Perhaps the theater company should depict Caesar as a rapacious banker who makes a living fleecing people by selling them bullshit mortgages and then faking the documentation afterwards?

  35. 35.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Phase II)

    @Roger Moore:

    Elections. The constitution. Heh. They were trying to keep power from the plebs. They’d fucked the plebs over by sending the small farmers off to war so much that the plebs couldn’t plant and/or harvest. They lost the farms , they lost their citizenship. And Rome lost men to defend itself. I’m sure he didn’t mean to, but Marius gave the optimates a gift when he introduced the professional military.

    Fuck…I need to find a cloud to yell at.

  36. 36.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    Don’t let them see I, Claudius. Oh, maybe they should — if Trump is Augustus, then Ivanka ends up exiled on an island, Jared is murdered, and the two boys are poisoned by Melania, Hey, I like that plot.

  37. 37.

    No Drought No More

    I guess the folks at Delta would hate one of my favorite films, Ian McClellan’s ‘Richard III’.

  38. 38.

    Feathers

    Of course, Delta sponsored the Guthrie Theater when they put on the “Obama” Julius Caesar. Et tu, Delta?

    The Shakespeare Theatre in DC put on a very Bush years production in their 2007-8 season. Don’t recall that there was a direct Caesar/Bush comparison, but the military vs. senators was very much costumed to look like present day Pentagon/Capitol Hill. Apparently the 1993-4 production was set in a post Soviet collapse Romania/Yugoslavia/Hungary amalgamation.

    Julius Caesar is invariably updated to reflect the present political situation. Unless, of course, they go full toga. Saying that the Public Theater shouldn’t have Trumpified it is being hopelessly naive.

  40. 40.

    Brachiator

    @Tom:

    .. …In what world is Donald Trump in any way like Julius Caesar?

    I don’t know. It’s all Greek to me.

  41. 41.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    So what exactly is being protested? Trump as a Roman dictator or assassinating Trump would give Trump a martyrdom Trump certainly doesn’t deserve? Or just the liberals are laughing so conservatives must find a reason to be dicks?

  43. 43.

    TenguPhule

    I try to enjoy a holiday and when I come back what do I find.

    How do I crowd fund my booze bill?

  45. 45.

    CDWard

    Trump needs to be assassinated. History shows that fascist dictators have to be stopped before they consolidate power.

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