A Man would apologize.

Julius Trump

When King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England in 1603, it was expected that London playwrights of the time would continue to adhere to their common practice of pleasing their monarchs with entertainment that often offered praise and loyalty through the subtext. The Master of Revels reviewed the plays before they were staged, ensuring there would be no offensive material for the monarchs as well as the general public, but for the most part to prevent any accusations of sedition or treason from the Crown. Thus it probably came as no surprise when Shakespeare penned Macbeth, believed to be originally staged in 1606, as a tribute to his new king.

Despite popular belief, Shakespeare did not shape his fictionalized rendering of the historic Macbeth around James; rather, it was Macbeth’s friend and fellow soldier Banquo. Banquo, whom witches prophesized would “get” kings, is believed to be a distant ancestor of James himself. Banquo is characterized in Shakespeare’s play as being moral, upright, honest: one of the few characters with enough integrity to see the dangers of power promised in prophecy. One would hope this integrity was mirrored in its model, but King James was obsessed with witchcraft and the corporal punishment of accused witches. He was particularly fond of the floating-but-mostly-drowning witch test, and penned the witch-hunting manual, Daemonologie.

Regardless, in order to keep James’s patronage and avoid accusations of treason and sedition, certain parameters were observed by the playwrights. As one would expect from a monarchy. Four-hundred years ago.

In 2017, particularly in the artistic haven of New York, it’s difficult to imagine a theater company losing patronage over what amounts to accusations of treason and sedition. And yet, with Shakespeare in the Park’s production of Julius Caesar starring Trump-family lookalikes, that’s exactly what is happening. According to reviewers and audience members, it was all fun and games — laughter at the send-up of Trump, Melania and even Jared Kushner — until the knives came out, when laughter reportedly turned to horror. This gives me pause for two reasons. First of all, do audiences and critics understand that in every production Julius Caesar (unless, perhaps, it was a Victorian Garrick rewrite with a happy ending), the title character is knifed to death? Do they know that history (and later Shakespeare in his retelling of it) is actually responsible for the stabbing of Julius Caesar, not Shakespeare in the Park wanting to pull a Kathy Griffin and give “Trump” an imagined grisly end just because New Yorkers don’t like him? Do they understand that Shakespearean plays are constantly re-envisioned to a different setting to make political or social commentary to reflect the times rather than to express a death wish? Which brings me to my second point: do they understand that the point of Caesar’s murder in the play is to promote the idea that killing off your tyrannical dictator, regardless of how much of dick he might be, will result in chaos?

While Shakespeare is still often staged in traditional settings, it’s becoming more of a common practice to impose a different interpretation in order to, as stated above, make political or social commentary. As an example, since we’re on the subject of tyrannical dictators, Patrick Stewart recently played Macbeth as a World-War-II-era fascist leader. In some respects, it’s become a standard practice for just about any art form to make some kind of social and political commentary unless its sole purpose is to entertain. One would expect a theater company at the caliber of Shakespeare in the Park to lean toward the former while still accomplishing the latter. Sending up Trump as the tyrannical dictator Julius Caesar is ostensibly accomplishing two objectives: acknowledging that he is behaving like a tyrannical dictator, and issuing a warning that violence will not solve the problem. At the very least, it’s a reflection of our times. In light of this, Donald Trump Jr.’s tweet in response to the play, “Serious question, when does ‘art’ become political speech & does that change things?” is laughable. Art often, but not always, makes political speech. And it certainly exists to change things.

So far, Shakespeare in the Park is holding their own and they’re not backing down in spite of funding being pulled from Delta and Bank of America. If I had the strength, will and means to do it, I’d replace that funding not just because I want some occasionally comic relief from the “real” Donald Trump, but because I believe in art’s ability to “hold the mirror up to nature” and give us pause about the world we’re accepting as reality.

There was some Hamlet in that last paragraph for you. And that doesn’t mean I want to kill myself.