A performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar featured the titular character in contemporary dress.
In this summer’s rendition in Central Park, Caesar is “dressed in a business suit, with a royal blue tie, hanging a couple inches below the belt line, with reddish-blonde hair,” according to Laura Shaeffer, an audience member who spoke to a local radio station.
Then there was the murder scene, with blood spurting everywhere. People were very upset at the scene with a character looking a heck of a lot like Trump. So am I.
Julius Caesar was brilliant and competent, maybe too competent, as he ruled Rome with the force of his will, his dignitas, his armies, his history of victory. Any comparison with Donald Trump is intolerable and inappropriate. I demand that the company cease besmirching the memory of a truly intelligent and historically important man.
Veni, vidi, covfefi.
Crikey, I don’t even think [what he wrote of] his Commentarii go this far, PZ.
Cartomancer: “Veni, vidi, covfefi.”
Done in one.
…“dressed in a business suit, with a royal blue tie, hanging a couple inches below the belt line, with reddish-blonde hair,”…
Perfect costume & cosmetics for Iago, not Caesar. Would also work very well for Bottom.
I think you are too hard on Tr…. JESUS H. CHRIST!
I turn my back and this pops up: “Financial docs show Trump funneled money intended for kids’ cancer treatment to his own businesses” http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/revealed-financial-docs-show-trump-funneled-money-intended-for-kids-cancer-treatment-to-his-own-businesses/
On the one hand, Trump hasn’t earned much comparison to Caesar, someone like Didius Julianus might be more his speed. On the other hand…Orange Julius.
Birgerjohansson, are you really surprised? This sounds entirely typical for tRumplethinskin. Obviously, he needed that cash more than some pathetic loser kids with cancer! He likes kids who don’t get cancer. In a few years, he’ll be dating them!
Much more apt would be to portray Trump as Shakespeare’s Richard III. For the rhyming slang if nothing else.
Or King Lear, with Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka as Reagan, Cordelia and Goneril.
cartomancer, #1
monad, #5
*applause*
Caesar would have never allowed a Gaul like Emmanuel Macron to dominate him so completely and publicly.
So who’s Octavian? Jared or Ivanka? Sean Spicer clearly is an inadequate Marc Antony, though well matched to his master. Plenty of candidates for Brutus, so it’s hard to choose. Don’t have a clue as to Cassius or Casca.
@1 standing ovation.
I would have thought Titus Andronicus or King Lear be more appropriate.
@ 5 il Juice-eh.
At least according to Julius Caesar, or someone who wanted it to appear that way. So, perhaps Caesar is a fitting model for Trumpster.
Julius Caesar has something in common with Trump: both are/were sexually aggressive and (ahem) unconventional.
JC was known for debaucheries with both genders, including, his military officers.
When JC marched home from a campaign, the soldiers sang:
A bit from the show “History Bites”[1] seems to fit a Trump inspired Caesar almost as much as it did a JFK based one[2] in the show:
Vidi vici veni
At least it’s what Orange Julius would claim he did.
[1] The concept was: What if TV were around for (moment in history)? Let’s flip around the channels to see the news, cooking shows, kid’s shows, etc.
[2] Done in retrospect about JC’s murder and the “Lone Knifeman” anti-conspiracy theorists.
Just because he was dressed in a similar way doesn’t mean he was a stand-in… Of course my comments won’t stop the Secret Service from thoroughly investigating everyone involved in that play for lots of incriminating things. They may possibly pop up on the no fly list, or extra security list. It happens quite a lot to anyone who even jokes about the President (whoever he (hopefully to become a non-gendered term soon) may be).
marcikesserich@10,
Indeed – he’d have divided Macron into three parts by now.
robro@14,
While Caesar’s Gallic Wars is certainly propagandistic, there really isn’t any doubt about his military and political achievements.
Julius Caesar was a genocidal warmonger who fucked over his friends for a quick buck. But he did write some popular memoirs where he tried to paint himself in the most positive light possible. So I guess all you can really say is that his PR is better than Trump’s.
Trump is so terribly incompetent he cannot even fuck over his friends for a quick buck.
maybe, but right now I think the casting call is still out, and for my money… nobody wants the part.
which is unfortunate, as it was truly the only way to stop a mad emperor historically.
I must admit to not thinking we have evolved enough to have an alternative even today.
The Schaeffer source was apparently a plant from a right-wing think tank, sent to be outraged. So it was performance art. That makes her Popilius Lena, playing both sides of the game, waiting to see whether the widely known secret conspiracy thrives or fails. As Trump would say, if he were capable of iambic pentameter and anything approaching complex thought,
The fault is not in our stars but in our selves that we are underlings. Except me, I’m an overling.
Is it true that everybody on Earth has some of JC ‘s atoms in them ,or something .
Infamy .infamy ,everyone has it in for me .
Carry on Cleo .
I bet he’d make an excellent go at I Clodius.
Remember last March15 that the movement tried to be known as “Ides of Trump” ?
I saw yesterday a conservopodiansnowflakes calling for boycott of this show, due to it depicting the assassination of our “glorious leader” (who apparently deserves oodles of adoration and respect and kudos, etc).
As if a boycott of a FREE PERFORMANCE could register in any way; other than as a Tweet flood in the Twitverse.
Also showing selective amnesia of the non-response from last year’s portrayal of Julius as a POC with a strong Obama likeness.
Agreed, I too object to this performance in the “liberal” way. Portraying Trump as the modern version of Julius Caesar (hereafter July). Not the “assassination of Trump” that the conserves see.
Portraying ~45 as July is the outrageous part, regardless of JC’s fate. ~45 has done nothing even comparable to July’s accomplishments.
[sorry for ranting in this thread]
?
Forget Julius Caesar — Trump is more like Richard III, Shakespeare’s satanic joker: