The mouth-breathing fury over a production of Julius Caesar in which the actor playing Caesar resembles Donald Trump was so ridiculous on its face, it hardly seemed worth anything more than ridicule. But now that Delta and Bank of America have pulled their funding rather than explain Shakespeare to Fox News viewers, it fell to Oskar Eustis, artistic director of New York’s Public Theater and director of the Julius Caesar production in question, to respond to his extremely disingenuous critics before Monday night’s performance.
He did so a lot more gracefully than most people would if they won Fox’s Two Minutes Hate lottery, patiently walking the audience through the play’s attitude toward violence and explaining why the anger was misplaced. For Eustis, Julius Caesar is a warning about “what happens when you try to preserve democracy by nondemocratic means”—if anything, a plea not to assassinate Donald Trump for fear of the chaos that would follow. But he also found time to subtweet his critics, noting that the play warned of “a large crowd of people, manipulated by their emotions, taken over by leaders who urge them to do things that not only are against their interest but destroy the very institutions that are there to serve and protect them.” That sounds a little too much like the mission statement of the Republican Party to be a coincidence, and Eustis’ forceful defense of the Public Theater made it clear that neither he nor the rest of the organization has any regrets about the production.
Unfortunately, the people who convinced Delta and Bank of America to pull their funding from a venerable institution over a ginned-up controversy—in a matter of hours, not days—were probably not in the audience. But actress and director Amber Tamblyn was, and she posted a video of Eustis’ introduction on Twitter. It may not change any minds, but it’s refreshing to see Eustis telling the truth instead of buckling, especially when Delta and Bank of America are behaving so shamefully. Watch below:
Here’s Eustis’ complete statement:
That’s what we do here in the theater: We try to hold a mirror up to nature. It’s what Shakespeare was doing, it’s what we’re doing. When we hold the mirror up to nature, often what we reveal are disturbing, upsetting, provoking things. Thank God. That’s our job.
Anybody who watches this play tonight—and I’m sorry, there’s going to be a couple of spoiler alerts here—but will know that neither Shakespeare nor the Public Theater could possibly advocate violence as a solution to political problems, and certainly not assassination. This play, on the contrary, warns about what happens when you try to preserve democracy by nondemocratic means, and again, spoiler alert: It doesn’t end up too good.
But at the same time, one of the dangers that is unleashed by that is the danger of a large crowd of people, manipulated by their emotions, taken over by leaders who urge them to do things that not only are against their interest, but destroy the very institutions that are there to serve and protect them. This warning is a warning that’s in this show, and we’re really happy to be playing that story for you tonight.
What I also want to say, and in this I speak, I am proud to say, for the Public Theater past, present, and, I hope, future; for the staff of the Public Theater; for the crews of the Public Theater; and for Patrick Willingham and myself when I say that we are here to uphold the Public’s mission. And the Public’s mission is to say 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. Welcome to the Public, welcome to Julius Caesar, thank you.
