Julius Caesar director urges artists to ‘take risks’
Oskar Eustis says he received death threats after portraying the Roman as Donald Trump
NEW YORK— The theatre director who endured death threats and lost corporate sponsors after staging a Donald Trump-inspired version of Julius Caesar has a message to any artist fearful of facing similar backlash: don’t flinch.
“We can’t allow ourselves to feel overwhelmed. We can’t allow ourselves to feel we’re completely isolated. We’re not,” Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater, told The Associated Press.
“We’re speaking for the majority of the country and we need to draw strength from that and step out and take the risks that will really fulfil the arts’ historic function.”
Eustis sparked controversy when he chose to portray Caesar as an egodriven populist with fluffy blond hair, a gold bathtub and a leggy Slovenian wife for his free Shakespeare in the Park summer production. While Trump’s name was never mentioned, the backlash was swift after photos and video appeared online of the Trumpian Caesar dying in a bloody group stabbing in Act 3, as has happened onstage for 400 years.
Some screamed that the production condoned the assassination of Trump, even though the play clearly warns those who commit political violence, even for noble reasons, about the futility of their actions. Several protesters stormed the stage and police are investigating threatening phone calls made to Eustis’s family.
“I thought we might provoke some response, but what I thought is we’d provoke response to our production, and what we got was not a response to our production, but a response to a completely slanted, biased reporting on a photograph and video tapes of our production,” Eustis said.
Delta and Bank of America pulled their sponsorships of the production and, perhaps most painfully, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which Trump once proposed eliminating, made a point of saying it had no role in the show.
“The NEA being forced to distance themselves from our production is a very sad commentary on how incredibly vulnerable they feel as a federal agency. I don’t have any criticism for them at all. They are fighting for their life,” Eustis said.
He said the Public, with deep roots in the community and wide financial support, will weather the storm.
He said it has received more than 35,000 supportive emails, letters and social media comments, along with some 2,000 letters containing cheques. (Filmmaker Michael Moore also promised to kick in $10,000 U.S.)
What Eustis most fears is that the blowback will have a chilling effect on less secure theatre companies “because they’ll be afraid of the consequences.” Theatre companies with Shakespeare in their name, but nothing to do with the Public have already become targets of vitriol.