@revelette1,
revelette1 wrote:
I gotta say, those Caesar protesters need to get a grip. Watch the show and see what it is about. I haven't seen it, but according to those putting on the play, it about how far people go in politics and how they fall.
Quote:Shakespeare actors and scholars told CBS News earlier this week that the protests fundamentally misunderstood the lesson of the play.
"The play doesn't condone violence," Shakespeare actor Joe Wegner told CBS News. "It actually is a story about what happens when an act like that is committed. And you watch these characters realize that. And then, in the end, everything falls."
CBS News
What is next, burning books because they suggest something somebody don't like?
I'm happy to discuss the production on it's artistic merits alone, and ignore the political controversy surrounding it. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the play, but based on what I have read about it (including reviews by critics who admired it and those who panned it), I think the following comments can be fairly made.
Whatever Shakespeare intended the lesson to be, we can be fairly certain that the members of the audience who shave stood and cheered when Trump/Caesar is assassinated, haven't been cheering the bard or his
lesson.
Joe Wegner should be reminded that if a director stages a production that can so easily lose the lesson of the playwright, in the (supposedly) unintended offense or glee taken from a pivotal scene, then he's done the work and the playwright a disservice.
The lesson of the play, as Wegner defines it, is not enhanced by the ham-fisted portrayal of the title character as Donald Trump, and certainly not when that portrayal is of a buffoon. The Julius Caesar of Shakespeare's play is by no means a buffoon and an important element of the play's
lesson is lost if the charismatic, noble and once very republican Roman patriot, who allowed himself to succumb to the allure of absolute power, is depicted as a clueless, shallow clown. It certainly renders the soliloquy and character of Marc Antony confused if his beloved Caesar was such an obviously crude churl.
Perhaps Oskar Eustis, the director, intended to convey a lesson of his own, and not one evident in the original play and all of the hundreds if not thousands of stagings that have conformed with the common understanding of Julius Caesar as both history and Shakespeare have written him. It wouldn't be the first time a director decided to favor his own spin over the bard's, and alone is not subject to dismissal or criticism, however when a director takes this approach; this risk, he or she should be held to a higher standard of artistic merit than those following a more traditional and noncontroversial path, and should be expected to pull it off by finding very solid support for his or her interpretation within the words and characters of the author, not by significantly
rewriting either.
A director might decide that the themes of "Othello" are best evoked by a main character who, unlike the one Shakespeare wrote, is a personification of faith and trust, and stage his version of it in a manner that portrays Othello as such a figure, going so far as to make obviously deliberate substitutions within the script and and alterations to traditional scene settings, stage direction or props that are, just as obviously, designed to lead the audience to realization (if not acceptance) of his or her interpretation of the character as widely parting ways with the commonly understood nature of the jealous Moor, however it would take artistic genius to pull it off.
[Sidebar; layman - going for the record here but I couldn't pull it off ]
It's fine to try and convey a unique interpretation of a classic work, but it is not fine to rewrite the work to accomplish it, and based on his body of work, it would be difficult to accept, going in, that Eustis is of sufficient artistry to accomplish the former without resorting, in some degree, to the latter. Judging by the reviews of the production I've read, the critical consensus is that Eustis basically botched whatever his attempt was (unless of course it was his intent to provide
Trump Resistance members who are also members of his audience, an opportunity to shamefully revel in a Trump assassination fantasy).
Joe Wegner, at least, seems to deny that Eustis had a particularly unique interpretation of the play's themes that might still ring true despite the necessity of modifying the title character's nature as originally written by Shakespeare, and therefore the next critical question is whether his staging with all of the changes made to cement Donald Trump in the pivotal role of the character
Julius Caesar (including those that Eustis apparently thought were necessary to get his take through the thick skulls of his audience e.g. adding a line about how his supporters wouldn't be fazed by his shooting someone on 5th Ave. or the stage setting of Trump/Caesar and Calpurnia sitting on thrones with the former's hand placed squarely on the latter's crotch) not only enhanced audience appreciation of the lessons of the play, but didn't muddle them.
Here again the critical consensus seems to be that this production lacked the required enhancement, but made up for it with considerable muddle.
So what the hell was Eustis up to?
I'll accept his assurances that he did not intend to make some sort of twisted statement that assassinating Donald Trump is a good, necessary or even acceptable response to Trump as President, but he pretty clearly
banked on his audience containing a many more opponents of Trump than supporters. Whether he anticipated or hoped for the standing ovation reaction to the Trump/Caesar assassination scene of some audience members during some performances, I've no idea, but, again, if he says he didn't, I'll accept that. The operative word here though is
banked.
In the last 50 years or so, a great many directors of Shakespeare's plays have attempted to put a
new spin or their
personal stamp on classics that have been revered for hundreds of years, and most often staged in a common manner. This is certainly understandable no matter how ego driven it may be. I also don't have any problem if the attempts are also driven, in part, for reasons of monetary or critical reward. Directing these plays in The Park is a job after all and the directors should not be ashamed that they expect and want monetary remuneration. Everyone likes to be praised and artists, probably, more so than most. At the level of commercial theater in which Eustis operates, critical acclaim in not only personally gratifying, it means more money and more opportunities.
Any arguments being made about artistic freedom and censorship are the typical responses to objections about "art" that is offensive and/or almost exclusively, aggressively provocative. While progressives most frequently make these arguments they are certainly not, themselves, immune to taking offense from art. That they are the originators of most of the arguments made for these reasons is more an indication of the politics of most artists rather than any exceptional tolerance, for art's sake, on the part of progressives.
"Piss Christ," for example attracted a great deal of condemnation by Christians (although harsh criticism was not limited to members of that faith) and a goodly amount of support based on the notion of artistic freedom (some coming from people who acknowledged finding the piece personally offensive. I suppose if someone wants to work really hard at finding a relevant message in "Piss Christ" that might separate it from being purely a very offensive and aggressively provocative middle finger extended towards Christians, they might come up with some flimsy assertion that it was intended to bring home the artist's view that religious symbols are no more sacred or special than human waste. No reason to ban it's display or persecute the artist, but sufficiently hostile and tasteless enough to question the artist's character and artistry and to advance the idea that taxpayer dollars should not be used to either support the artist or fund the showing of his work.
I can easily imagine the reaction from progressives to an equally hostile and tasteless work of "art" that gruesomely and realistically depicted illegal immigrants being blown up at the border between the US and Mexico, and I imagine it would be filled with an outrage similar to that displayed by Christians in response to "Piss Christ." I would share their reaction and argue that the artist deserved the same treatment as I believe was warranted towards Andres Serrano as respects public funding, even though if I worked really hard, I might be able to create a flimsy assertion that the painting "Invasores Muertos" reflected the artist's point of view about the dangers and harm of illegal immigration to both the nations they enter illegally and the immigrants themselves, and therefore be entitled to the intellectual and legal protection afforded artistic free expression. It would be BS of course, or, at least, no more substantive than the rationale employed to designate "Piss Christ" art, but as the determination of what can be called art is so heavily based on subjective interpretation, it should be the sort of BS available to keep it free of censorship based on notions of hate speech.
The current Shakespeare in the Park production of "Julius Caesar" is not, in my opinion, in the same league as "Piss Christ" or the fictitious "Invasores Muertos," if only because while the offensive, tasteless, and cartoonish depiction of Trump as Caesar, and particularly the bloody assassination scene, seriously distracts from the lessons Joe Wegner believes the play can impart, it doesn't eradicate them entirely. It can't be said that the play is only hateful and hostile provocation, but it can and should be said that it is an example of free speech that needs to be protected.
Having said this, Delta and BOA's withdrawal of their funding of the play is not an assault against free speech and neither is the recent instance where two audience members stood up and shouted "Shame!" during the assassination scene. Any comparison between the conduct of these two people and book burning is specious at best. The two audience members didn't destroy the work or attempt to deprive others of the opportunity to experience it, and, in fact, were exercising their 1st Amendment right to free speech, which is the best way to respond to speech one feels is offensive and antagonistic. If the organizers of Shakespeare in the Park wished to claim the right to eject patrons whose behavior might be considered disruptive, they would not be condemned by me for trampling on freedom of speech. I would ask them why they didn't similarly eject those patrons who stood and cheered when Trump/Caesar has multiple knives thrust into his body, but I would not be leading a 1st Amendment crusade against them.
Finally, I don't accept that provocation for it's own sake is what art is all about, nor the assertion of James Baldwin that it is the artist's role to
disturb the peace. This doesn't, at all, mean that works which provoke reaction and disturb the status quo have any less artistic value than a painting by Johannes Vermeer or a sculpture by Michelangelo, but if all they contain is shock value than their value is very negligible indeed. In my mind, the Eustis production isn't lousy art because it might incite some lunatic to violence, but because it was created, in too large a measure, to exploit base emotions and indulge the hatred of it's director and large segments of it's audience.
Again, I have not seen the play and the the opinions I've expressed here are based on what has been written by people who have seen it, and personal experiences with other plays and works of art. This clearly presents a high risk of being off the mark on this production. If anyone has actually seen the play, I would love to hear their take on it.
