WASHINGTON, D.C. — With the uproar over New York City’s Public Theater’s rendition of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” still buzzing on America’s right, word comes now that a gang of actors have menacingly setup in front of the White House and are assaulting the Trump administration with art and acting.
The hubbub over the staging of the classic Shakespeare play arose when conservatives found out that the role of Caesar — whose assassination, and the attendant tragedy that then befalls Rome, is at the heart of the show — was cast in a way as to represent President Donald Trump. During the Obama years, Public Theater staged a run of the play with an African American in the role. The furor over the casting decision resulted in a few large corporate backers of the Public Theater to pull its funding.
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In front of the White House, a group of ten actors and actresses have assembled to read the screenplay to “All the President’s Men,” a film based on the real-life account of journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. In the 1970’s, the pair helped The Washington Postlead the nation’s coverage of the ongoing Watergate Scandal, which ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Representatives for the theater company say that the troupe’s members have “gotten a distinctly Nixonian vibe” from Trump as the probes into Russian hacking of the 2016 election has closed in around him, and as Special Counsel Bob Mueller has made Trump the target of a criminal investigation of obstruction of justice .
“We wanted to come here and risk our lives,” Henrietta Williams, Creative Director for the New Arts Guild in the nation’s capital, told reporters in front of the White House, “to put on this staged reading. We know that the president is intimidated by theater kids, as his tiff with the cast of Hamilton illustrates, but we just felt that art is vital enough to risk being thrown in jail or worse, because the words coming out of our mouths might hurt President Trump’s sensitive feelings.”
Ms. Williams says that they did have some other concerns outside of safety to consider, when choosing which script to read in front of the White House.
“Frankly, we were worried that Trump had so far surpassed Nixon that the comparison would seem silly,” Williams said, “because Trump has done stuff even Nixon wouldn’t have had the guts to try.”
The White House could not reached for comment.
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