Idiots Threaten Shakespeare Companies Across the Country

Corey Stoll as Brutus in the Public Theater's Julius Caesar.

There really are other stories worthy of comment out there, but the Public Theater’s production of Julius Caesar seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. Even after the play's closing, the controversy surrounding the Caesar-as-Trump schtik has engendered some of the best discussions of Shakespeare we’re likely to encounter as a larger population. Curmie, as a theatre historian and critic, has access to, and an interest in, more purely scholarly investigations on an ongoing basis, but the average American, even the average theatre-goer, has seldom had the opportunity he or she has had over the last few weeks to read some very high-level and yet eminently readable stuff.

Among these commentaries are those from practitioners like Corey Stoll, who played Brutus (the lead, in other words) at the Public, and Rob Melrose, who directed the 2012 Guthrie Theatre/Acting Company co-production in which an Obama-like Caesar was assassinated on stage in Act III. Most telling about Melrose’s commentary is this three-paragraph passage describing why he thinks his production avoided controversy whereas Oskar Eustis’s did not:

I think one key difference in the corporate response to the two productions is simply that most people who wrote about and talked about our production — the one with an Obama-inspired Caesar — actually saw the show, where it is clear that most of those outraged by The Public Theater’s Trumpian emperor either didn’t see the play or didn’t stay to the end. [emphasis Curmie’s] 

The Breitbart article that started the controversy is — I kid you not — a review by someone who talked to someone who saw the show. This second-order correspondent also thinks the play ends with the death of Caesar, as if they are killing the bad guy at the end of a superhero movie. In fact, the assassination takes place in the middle of the play, the rest of which deals with the terrible consequences of this action. Shakespeare built the outrage into the text. Mark Antony is so outraged — for himself, and on our behalf — that outrage suffuses the play’s entire second half. If you see a production, you get outraged with the play, not against it.

Our Obama-inspired production also didn’t have any gestures that tipped our hand to say “this is definitely Obama.” We wanted to make sure audiences could make the Obama connection if they wanted to — or could ignore the connections if they only wanted to live inside in the circumstances of Shakespeare’s play. In Eustis’s production, the Trump connections are more overt : Caesar wears an overly long red tie, Calpurnia speaks with a Slovenian accent (or “Slavic” if you are writing for Breitbart). There is also much more humor and satire in the Public Theater production. Caesar usually is not a very funny play, and I tip my hat to Oskar Eustis for finding so many genuinely funny moments. That may have bristled some people as well, but Eustis is hardly the first person to make fun of the president.

In other words, much if not all of the furor over the Public’s production was born of ignorance, and a rather proud and self-righteous ignorance, at that.

But Stoll’s article is, of course, more relevant to the current kerfuffle. Here’s the most important paragraph in Curmie’s mind:

When Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater and our show’s director, first assembled our cast for rehearsals, my anxieties centered on my desire to hold my own in such a strong company. After four weeks in the rehearsal room, we moved to the theater and I saw Caesar’s Trump-like costume and wig for the first time. I was disappointed by the literal design choice. I had little fear of offending people, but I worried that the nuanced character work we had done in the rehearsal room would get lost in what could seem like a Saturday Night Live skit. I was right and wrong. Audiences did laugh at Caesar, in an explosive, hungry way that shocked us with its intensity, but when it came time for the assassination scene, they lost their nerve. In early previews, isolated audience members would scoff or even applaud during the bloody, awkward, and ugly assassination scene. Two weeks in, once we refined our performances to neutralize the laughter, you could hear a pin drop. By then, I better understood Eustis’s decision to be so literal in making Caesar Trump. A nontrivial percentage of our liberal audience had fantasized about undemocratic regime change in Washington. Acted out to its logical conclusion, that fantasy was hideous, shameful, and self-defeating.

Notice that even Stoll himself had trouble getting past the literalization of the Caesar/Trump linkage, but ultimately he realized that it was the anti-democratic impulses of the left, not the authoritarianism of the right, that presents the greater danger in the play, and quite possibly to 21st-century America. Curmie is pretty certain that a significant percentage of both sides failed to make that connection. Perhaps this can be attributed to a failure in the production; more likely, it’s a failure in the spectators.

Speaking of the public’s (as opposed to the Public’s) failures: one of the most disturbing elements of the largely Astroturf outrage at Eustis’s production is that Shakespeare companies around the country started getting death threats. Getting riled to violence because of a play is not exactly a new phenomenon—one thinks of the first run of The Playboy of the Western World or the Astor Place Riots, for example—but if those events were spawned by hypersensitivity or hyperbolic nationalism, this round can only be attributed to utter stupidity. It’s repulsive enough that members of the Public Theater experienced death threats. It’s another step towards outrageousness that those threats extended to Oskar Eustis’s wife and daughter. “I want to grab you by the p---y,” one caller allegedly said. “Your husband wants Trump to die. I want him to die.” But for full-blown, terrifying lunacy, there’s the fact that other Shakespeare companies around the country—people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the Public’s production—are also under threat.

The two theatres most often mentioned in press coverage of this phenomenon are Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA, and Shakespeare Dallas. The Washington Post (linked above) and Salon, neither of them exactly bastions of conservative thought, both ran stories talking about how “Trumpsters” (Salon’s term) were sending death threats to “the wrong [theatres].” Serious question: is Curmie alone in thinking there’s no such place as a “correct theatre” to which to send death threats?

But there’s something else at play here for Curmie. Yes, it takes a special kind of stupid to make death threats at all. And yes, sending hate mail to Massachusetts or Texas because of a New York production secures an even more exalted place in the annals of history’s greatest morons. But, for Curmie, things just got personal. I have a friend and former student who’s acting at Shakespeare and Company this summer; three others that I can think of off the top of my head have worked at Shakespeare Dallas in recent years, and it’s only chance that they aren’t there now. I have a colleague at Arkansas Shakespeare, and seven present or former students at the Texas Shakespeare Festival. I know of at least three other summer companies with “Shakespeare” in the title where personal friends have worked in the past. One of them qualifies as “Shakespeare in the Park,” which seems to be the designated Google search term for assholes who might be violent if they weren’t so imbecilic and so craven. Curmie doesn’t like it when his friends get threatened, especially when they haven’t done anything that any sane person could construe as even remotely deserving of such treatment.

This episode serves to underscore some unpleasant truths about our country. Foremost among these is the political schism, the product of an arrogant buffoon of a President and a press corps interested only in spinning their partisan rhetoric, and the truth be damned. We are reminded that there are a lot of idiots out there (like we didn’t know that from who got elected President, right?). A more fundamental concern is the attack on the arts in general. Any kind of commentary, any nuance, any perceived threat to the Hegemonic Legion of Doom, however miniscule, is increasingly likely to draw the wrath of the propagandists at Breitbart or Fox News: and the proudly anti-intellectual denizen of the White House will give them cover, even as they shill for his disastrous policies.

It ain’t pretty out there, y’all.

Julius Caesar, Philistines, Corporate Cowardice, and Active Misreadings

A couple of days ago, Curmie was actually casting about, wanting to take advantage of his newly-returned desire to write, but unable to find a topic of more than moderate interest, the latest escapades of the most corrupt presidency in history and its nearly-as-unethical opposition having long since passed the point of generating ennui. But the last couple of days have provided a new story, two new-to-me stories, and a story that I have come to realize is indeed a worthy subject for an essay. The Blog Gods have heard my plaint.

Tina Benko and Gregg Henry in the Public Theater production of Julius Caesar.
Photo credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Today, Curmie does something he hasn’t done in a very long time: write about a topic while it’s still “hot.” Sunday, Delta Airlines and Bank of America both withdrew their funding of the Public Theater’s production of Julius Caesar, literally the day before it officially opened. The play, which was in previews for about three weeks (and somehow was already reviewed) has caused controversy by portraying the title character as a Donald Trump clone: what New York Times critic Jesse Green describes as “a petulant, blondish Caesar in a blue suit, complete with gold bathtub and a pouty Slavic wife.” Subtlety does not appear to be this production’s strong suit.

Of course, Caesar is killed by his must trusted advisors about halfway through the play, a structural anomaly that makes Julius Caesar one of Curmie’s least favorite Shakespeare plays. Let’s face it, after Mark Antony’s big speech in Act III, we’re left with the longest dénouement in history. It’s really hard to bring off Acts IV and V because they’re, well, boring as hell.

But Curmie strays. You see, apparently this production’s assassination scene is more graphic than most, prompting further indignation from paranoid right-wingers: you know, the ones who call other people snowflakes. So the right-wing media ginned up an Astroturf campaign to apply pressure to the Public Theater’s corporate sponsors. And the hegemons controlling those corporations—being devoid of any understanding of theatre, historical perspective, ethical sensibility, or moral courage—promptly capitulated.

Delta sniffs:

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. 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.

Apparently their vaunted “values” don’t include honoring commitments to theatre companies any more than they honor them to their customers. What Delta does with its money next year is completely up to them, and if they don’t want to be associated with one of the most famous and indeed prestigious theatre programs in the country, that is absolutely their prerogative, even if it is cowardly and ill-advised. But they’ve made a commitment for this year, and even if their high-priced legal team (which they need because their service is so terrible) can get them out of legal obligations, their ethical duty to support the Public Theater financially for the remainder of the season stands, even if they publicly disavow this production.

At least Bank of America understands that much… sort of. They, too, unethically withdrew funding from this play, although they did not completely sever relations with the Public. Still, they accuse the company’s production of an intention “to provoke and offend.” The former is certainly true. The latter might be true, but there certainly isn’t sufficient evidence to say that with any certainty. Bank of America, like Delta, is craven and culturally illiterate. Do they not get it that the whole point of Julius Caesar is that killing the title character is a Bad Thing? Perhaps the production does not make that sufficiently clear—it does sound more pretentious than profound—but the company’s official statement seems both apt and sincere. I quote it here in its entirety:

The Public Theater stands completely behind our production of Julius Caesar. We understand and respect the right of our sponsors and supporters to allocate their funding in line with their own values. We recognize that our interpretation of the play has provoked heated discussion; audiences, sponsors and supporters have expressed varying viewpoints and opinions.  Such discussion is exactly the goal of our civically-engaged theater; this discourse is the basis of a healthy democracy. Our production of Julius Caesar in no way advocates violence towards anyone. Shakespeare's play, and our production, make the opposite point: those who attempt to defend democracy by undemocratic means pay a terrible price and destroy the very thing they are fighting to save. For over 400 years, Shakespeare’s play has told this story and we are proud to be telling it again in Central Park.

That’s a good response to a pretty knee-jerk reaction by corporations who should know better. As Curmie’s netpal Jack Marshall wrote, “Corporate donors to the arts should give because they support art, artists and public access to art, not because they endorse or insist on any particular message or artistic vision.” Indeed, it would be foolish to expect any theatre company to intentionally avoid plays or interpretations of plays that would resonate with a contemporary audience. (Disclaimer for those who don’t know Curmie personally: my scholarly interest centers on modern adaptations of inherited, often classical, material. What I do, in other words, is to explore as a scholar precisely the kinds of adaptations and productions the Public and groups like them explore as artists.)

There have also, of course, been expressions of support for the Public: from other sponsors like the New York Times and from the New York City Comptroller, who sent copies of the play to the heads of the two corporations, with a note saying that “Art matters. The First Amendment matters. Expression matters,” and that the companies’ cravenness (Curmie’s word, not his) “undermines the very vibrancy of the cause you chose to support in the first place.”

But if the corporations were running scared without good reason, their pusillanimity pales compared to the National Endowment for the Arts, which is more concerned with covering its own collective ass than in being a legitimate advocate for art or artists. All they could muster was this:

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.

Way to fight for the cause, guys! Seriously, Curmie has (unsurprisingly) been an advocate for the NEA for years, but if this is how they’re going to act when the heat is on, we might as well do without.

Of course, this is a serious matter. The arts don’t matter to Americans… or, rather, they don’t matter to politicians (especially, but not exclusively, Republicans), and they don’t matter enough to voters to throw the rascals out. This production got nothing from the federal government and about 2/10 of a cent per New York State resident from the state. The NEA receives about 46 cents per American per year. By contrast, even in this era of Tory “austerity,” Arts Council England gets nearly $12 per UK citizen; in Germany it’s over $18.50, over 40 times the American per capita rate... and that's with the Euro at an all-time low relative to the dollar.  The result is that corporate (and foundation) sponsorship is inordinately important here. 

When corporations support art, it’s a good thing. When they start attaching strings—“you can only do pabulum”—that’s another matter. It isn’t censorship (despite what some lefties might say) but the result is pretty much the same (despite what some on the right would say). You’re not going to be prosecuted for doing this production of Julius Caesar, but remember that you’re getting almost all your funding from corporate sponsorship (remember, the whole idea is free Shakespeare in the Park, so box office isn’t in a position to make up the difference if the suits start thinking they should have approval rights for anything that goes up under their sponsorship).

Curmie knows something about this from having dealt with local businesses who sponsor summer stock or university theatres. He knows what some folks demand for just a couple thousand dollars. Make that a couple million, and the self-entitlement is likely to be thick on the ground.

Still, it is difficult to imagine what is going on in the minds of the execs at Delta and Bank of America. Do they think that theatre is somehow apolitical, when (Curmie would argue) it started as a means of consolidating power for the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus? Surely the political content of everything from The Oresteia to “Master Harold”… and the boys is manifest? Doesn’t every high school student know what The Crucible is really about? Was Tartuffe written in a vacuum?

Indeed, Curmie often uses two Shakespeare plays—Richard III and Macbeth—to illustrate the politics of drama. Question: which was written first? Unless you’re a Shakespeare scholar, you might not know off the top of your head. But how about this: Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, just about the midpoint in of Shakespeare’s career, to be succeeded by James I. Elizabeth loved stories of England’s history; James was Scottish, liked tales of the supernatural, and detested women. The title characters of both plays were actually the villains: Richard is defeated by Elizabeth’s grandfather; James traced his lineage to Banquo who, though murdered by Macbeth’s minions, was nonetheless prophesied to “get [i.e., beget] kings.” So: which play was written first, and when, relative to 1603, were they written? Q.E.D.

Finally, Curmie is obliged to respond to the paranoid delusions of some on the right who proclaim that if a Clinton or Obama were portrayed this way, the liberals would be incensed.  The facts say otherwise.  There was a joint production a few years ago by two of the country’s most prestigious troupes, the Acting Company and the Guthrie Theatre.  Here are snippets from three different reviews:

• Noah Millman: “Caesar… is a tall, charismatic African-American politician; he doesn’t look or sound much like Obama…, but the audience is unquestionably going to read him as an Obama stand-in nonetheless.”
• The Morning After arts/entertainment blog: “...Caesar is cast as a tall, lanky black man, the Obama inference is a bit too obvious.”
• Jay Gabler: “...Bjorn DuPaty cutting an unmistakably Obama-like figure as the eponymous ruler.”  [in all cases here, emphasis mine]

Oh, and the director, Rob Melrose, says that “I think both Oskar [Eustis] and I are doing the same thing, which is, whenever you produce this play, you have to think about who is currently in power. I think when you encourage an audience to think that way, it brings the play into people’s lives in a way that’s palpable.”

There is no doubt that the Public’s production points more unmistakably to the current President than the previous one did to the one then serving, but that is hardly the same as saying that what was so readily apparent to several reviewers of the earlier production was somehow missed by everyone else.  Note, too, that one of the reviews quoted above was published on a site called The American Conservative, and another underscores Mr. Obama’s “[failure] to live up to the Messianic hype.”  In other words, the authors are anything but Obamaphiles.  Yet neither they nor anyone on the left that Curmie can discover as much as batted an eye at the Acting Company/Guthrie production.  Moreover, such parody (or pastiche?) is either legitimate or it is not.  How some hypothetical audience of some hypothetical production may or may not have behaved (or might behave in the future) hardly seems relevant.

The idea that plays, or productions of them, are somehow apolitical is patently absurd. Most productions that attempt to move Shakespeare out of period are fraught with peril (and the Public’s Julius Caesar may well an example of this phenomenon), but some (Ian McKellen’s Richard III, for instance) are brilliant. And, as Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis said in his curtain speech before the official opening:

...when we hold the mirror up to nature, often what we reveal are disturbing, upsetting, provoking things. Thank God. That’s our job…. The Public’s mission is to say that that the culture belongs to everybody, needs to belong to everybody, to say that art has something to say about the great civic issues of our time, and to say that, like drama, democracy depends on the conflict of different points of view. Nobody owns the truth. We all own the culture.

Amen to that.