What's past is prologue

Scholar James Shapiro looks at how Shakespeare has always “served as a canary in a coal mine, alerting us to threats to our fragile democracy.” He offers as a recent example the Public Theater’s 2017 production of Julius Caesar in Central Park.

I EXPECT SHAKESPEARE TO PLAY THE SAME ROLE FOR THE NEXT 250 YEARS IN AMERICAN LIFE THAT HE HAS FOR THE PAST 250: providing unrivaled insight into the challenges facing our nation. From the time of the Revolution, Americans have turned to Shakespeare to grapple with the dangers confronting us. Take John Adams, our second president, who in 1805 wrote to his son (and future sixth president) John Quincy Adams, that he had been “uncommonly engaged and interested in reading Shakespeare, and particularly his historical dramas.” He was immersing himself in those plays because he found in them “instructive examples for the perusal of this country.”

John Adams was keenly aware of the dangers of divisions that these history plays enacted: “treachery, perfidy, treason, murder, cruelty sedition, and rebellions of rival and unbalanced factions.” Having helped establish the young nation, he understood better than most its constitutional vulnerabilities, especially when wealth came into play. He could easily imagine, he writes, how a corrupt future president might employ his children in dealing with foreign autocrats in ways that would betray our national interest.

Shakespeare continues to serve as a canary in a coal mine, alerting us to threats to our fragile democracy, on the stage as well as the page. I can offer a powerful instance of this, which I observed first-hand at a production of Julius Caesar staged at the Delacorte Theater in New York’s Central Park in June 2017, a few months after Donald Trump was first inaugurated.

The director, Oskar Eustis, was keen on exploring, as John Adams had, the dangers of factionalism. He was especially interested in using the play to question what it meant to desire political change by undemocratic means, in this case, through assassination. And he sharpened the political stakes in two ways. The first was having the actor playing Julius Caesar closely resemble Donald Trump (while Calpurnia looked and sounded like the first lady, Melania). The second, in this modern-dress production, was to place 50 or so protesters throughout the outdoor audience of 1,800 or so playgoers. At the moment when Caesar was stabbed to death, they stood, individually and in small groups, and loudly jeered, lambasting Brutus and his fellow conspirators for their murderous action. It was very effective, causing consternation in the audience, and forcing the largely liberal crowd to wrestle with the consequences of their desires.

I was advising this production, so was there every night. The last week of the run, right-wing groups, having heard about the production, deliberately mischaracterized it, setting in motion unforeseen consequences. Mediaite ran a story under the headline “Senators Stab Trump to Death in Central Park Performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,” which Breitbart, later that day, further sensationalized: “‘Trump’ Stabbed to Death in Central Park Performance of ‘Julius Caesar.’” The day after that a playgoer illegally filmed part of the assassination scene and shared it with Inside Edition, which uploaded it to YouTube. It quickly went viral in this echo chamber, especially after Fox & Friends announced: “NYC Play Appears to Depict Assassination of Trump.”  The Public Theater was flooded with angry calls and emails. One warned: “If ever a Theater should Burn to the Ground, Its Yours.” Another: “I hope the next protests comes with a bang.” Other theaters across the land—that had nothing to do with this production—began receiving violent threats as well.

On June 16, Mike Cernovich, a prominent far-right activist best known for promoting the bizarre Pizzagate conspiracy theory, offered a $1,000 “prize” to each of the first 10 people who would disrupt the Delacorte performance “where Trump is assassinated.” That evening, the show began uneventfully. But at the end of the assassination scene, after Cinna cried out “Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!,” a playgoer suddenly left her seat and made her way onstage. The play stopped as she shouted, “Stop the normalization of political violence against the Right!”  The disruption turned out to be coordinated, for an accomplice was already standing and filming her.

Nobody knew what she intended to do next. The actor who was closest moved to block her from the rest of the company. Stagehands quickly interposed themselves. It took another few seconds before a security team escorted her off. Only a minute or two had passed but the spell of the drama had been broken, and the actors stood about, unsure what to do. A calm and familiar voice was next heard through the sound system; it belonged to Buzz Cohen, the unassuming stage manager who had been shepherding shows at the Delacorte for decades: “Will the actors pick up from ‘Freedom and Liberty?’”  The effect on everyone in the house was electrifying. The audience stood as one and cheered.

Outside the theater, the woman who had rushed the stage continued to yell loudly enough to distract the actors. She was finally arrested. It turns out that she badly wanted to be taken into custody, having set up in advance a link to which supporters could send her money for her legal defense. She turned a tidy profit. Later that week she appeared on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox.  Her name was Laura Loomer, and the name of her accomplice who filmed her was Jack Posobiec. Tensions remained high for the rest of the run, as first one and then another agitator rushed the stage, but by now the cast knew the drill and security tackled them and escorted them out.

Playgoers shake their heads knowingly when Julius Caesar ignores the Soothsayer’s warning to “Beware the ides of March.” We all know what’s coming. And yet those who witnessed or read about what happened at this production, myself included, failed to understand its warning—and by extension failed to grasp how keenly Shakespeare continues to reveal deep divisions within our culture. Loomer is now a fixture in Trump’s circle, and Posobiec recently described in The Atlantic as “among the most important figures in MAGA.” It was only years later that those who were at the Delacorte that evening belatedly realized that what they had witnessed was a dress rehearsal for what took place at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, what John Adams would have called a treacherous and perfidious act by an unbalanced faction.

>> Explore more of our series in which Folger Director Dr. Farah Karim-Cooper asks American Shakespeareans what role Shakespeare will play in the next 250 years of the American story

About the author

James Shapiro is Larry Miller Professor Emeritus of English at Columbia University, and author of Shakespeare in a Divided America and the forthcoming Othello: An American Tragedy.