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| Shakespeare plays and civic strife: the Julius Caesar fiasco is nothing new | Shakespeare plays and civic strife: the Julius Caesar fiasco is nothing new |
| (7 months later) | |
| It was a production of Macbeth that caused the Astor Place Riots in 1849. How is it that Shakespeare so readily engages the gears of public debate? | |
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| Fri 16 Jun 2017 06.34 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 9 Oct 2017 05.46 BST | |
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| At the centre of the controversy over the corporate boycott of this year’s Shakespeare in the Park production is a 400-year-old play about a rather famous political assassination. Delta Airlines and Bank of America withdrew their funding of the production on account of its political implications. The offensive concept is a Trump-like Julius Caesar. | At the centre of the controversy over the corporate boycott of this year’s Shakespeare in the Park production is a 400-year-old play about a rather famous political assassination. Delta Airlines and Bank of America withdrew their funding of the production on account of its political implications. The offensive concept is a Trump-like Julius Caesar. |
| How is it that Shakespeare so readily engages the gears of public debate in 2017? The Public Theatre is accused of “intending to provoke and offend”. If Caesar were a simple villain, justly killed, such an intention might be achievable. But anyone who knows the play, knows that the killing of Caesar is a morally complex matter. Brutus offers a solid, prosaic justification to the plebeians for doing it, then Marc Antony flips their sympathies until they are baying for Brutus’ blood. | How is it that Shakespeare so readily engages the gears of public debate in 2017? The Public Theatre is accused of “intending to provoke and offend”. If Caesar were a simple villain, justly killed, such an intention might be achievable. But anyone who knows the play, knows that the killing of Caesar is a morally complex matter. Brutus offers a solid, prosaic justification to the plebeians for doing it, then Marc Antony flips their sympathies until they are baying for Brutus’ blood. |
| It is a stunning set-piece of political rhetoric. This is rhetoric in its exalted sense of persuasive utterance that activates every faculty, installing listeners as judges. There is no saying where the audience’s sympathy will land. It is decided night by night or even line by line. Will Caesar emerge as a charismatic victim of bad advice or as a tyrant? The kind of provocation the play offers is open to contingency. It’s a dicey predicament as far as political messages go and clearly, for the corporate sponsors, bets are off. | It is a stunning set-piece of political rhetoric. This is rhetoric in its exalted sense of persuasive utterance that activates every faculty, installing listeners as judges. There is no saying where the audience’s sympathy will land. It is decided night by night or even line by line. Will Caesar emerge as a charismatic victim of bad advice or as a tyrant? The kind of provocation the play offers is open to contingency. It’s a dicey predicament as far as political messages go and clearly, for the corporate sponsors, bets are off. |
| This shows that if we read Shakespeare more carefully, we may find ourselves reading public controversy with more skill and precision. Shakespeare’s plays have a history of involvement with civic strife. Consider the Old Price Riots at Covent Garden in 1809 and the Astor Place Riots in New York in 1849. Both featured Macbeth, but the play receded into the background when political commentary took over. | This shows that if we read Shakespeare more carefully, we may find ourselves reading public controversy with more skill and precision. Shakespeare’s plays have a history of involvement with civic strife. Consider the Old Price Riots at Covent Garden in 1809 and the Astor Place Riots in New York in 1849. Both featured Macbeth, but the play receded into the background when political commentary took over. |
| If we return to reading the play, however, its centrality to the controversies seems more than a coincidence. Macbeth dramatises its protagonist’s appetite for power. He plots a path to regicide, but takes some surprising detours. He contemplates, movingly, mortality: | If we return to reading the play, however, its centrality to the controversies seems more than a coincidence. Macbeth dramatises its protagonist’s appetite for power. He plots a path to regicide, but takes some surprising detours. He contemplates, movingly, mortality: |
| All our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. | All our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. |
| He is a villain, no question, but his poetic defiance strikes a sympathetic chord. | He is a villain, no question, but his poetic defiance strikes a sympathetic chord. |
| William Charles Macready, playing Macbeth in a besieged Astor Place Opera House on 10 May 1849, harnessed this force to get him through Act 5: | William Charles Macready, playing Macbeth in a besieged Astor Place Opera House on 10 May 1849, harnessed this force to get him through Act 5: |
| [I]n the very spirit of resistance I flung my soul into every word I uttered … exciting the audience to a sympathy even with the glowing words of fiction, whilst these dreadful deeds of real crime and outrage were roaring … in our ears. | [I]n the very spirit of resistance I flung my soul into every word I uttered … exciting the audience to a sympathy even with the glowing words of fiction, whilst these dreadful deeds of real crime and outrage were roaring … in our ears. |
| It is hard to tell whether the actor seeks sympathy for his character or for himself. The English forces are closing in on Macbeth in the play, and the theatre is under siege. The whole performance has been attended by the din of stones hurled at the building by a crowd thousands strong. Now, back in his dressing room, he confides to his diary, “we heard a volley of musketry”. His alarm, expressed in Shakespearean terms: ‘“Hark, what’s that?”, I asked’, is Macbeth’s own. | It is hard to tell whether the actor seeks sympathy for his character or for himself. The English forces are closing in on Macbeth in the play, and the theatre is under siege. The whole performance has been attended by the din of stones hurled at the building by a crowd thousands strong. Now, back in his dressing room, he confides to his diary, “we heard a volley of musketry”. His alarm, expressed in Shakespearean terms: ‘“Hark, what’s that?”, I asked’, is Macbeth’s own. |
| A few blocks away in the Broadway Theatre, the home-grown star, Edwin Forrest, was also playing Macbeth. What had begun as personal friction between this American actor and his visiting London counterpart, ended as a large scale public disturbance. | A few blocks away in the Broadway Theatre, the home-grown star, Edwin Forrest, was also playing Macbeth. What had begun as personal friction between this American actor and his visiting London counterpart, ended as a large scale public disturbance. |
| It is unclear to what extent Forrest was connected with the handbills and posters distributed throughout the city that day that turned the Shakespeare showdown into a question of civic sovereignty, asking, “SHALL AMERICANS OR ENGLISH RULE THIS CITY?” | It is unclear to what extent Forrest was connected with the handbills and posters distributed throughout the city that day that turned the Shakespeare showdown into a question of civic sovereignty, asking, “SHALL AMERICANS OR ENGLISH RULE THIS CITY?” |
| What is certain is that Macready and the elite venue in which he played became a spontaneous platform for resistance to the Anglo-American aristocratic classes of New York. At the Astor Place Riots, as many as 31 people were killed when the regiment appointed to keep the peace opened fire on the protesting crowd. So, can reading the riot through the play that it featured help us to a deeper understanding of its causes? For Edwin Forrest at least, in his competing production, it is hard to imagine that that these words failed to fire the imagination: | What is certain is that Macready and the elite venue in which he played became a spontaneous platform for resistance to the Anglo-American aristocratic classes of New York. At the Astor Place Riots, as many as 31 people were killed when the regiment appointed to keep the peace opened fire on the protesting crowd. So, can reading the riot through the play that it featured help us to a deeper understanding of its causes? For Edwin Forrest at least, in his competing production, it is hard to imagine that that these words failed to fire the imagination: |
| What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,Would scour these English hence? | What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,Would scour these English hence? |
| Shakespeare’s plays are designed to engage the gears of public debate. Conceived in a climate of intense censorship, they had to dodge accusations of partisanship. Shakespeare developed a rare knack for giving play to both sides; perhaps his very survival depended upon it. The legacy is dramas that retain an enduring potential to explore the complexities of any human predicament. In an age when a tweet can reduce political rhetoric to a reflexive twitch, the capacity of these plays to reinstate us as attentive and intelligent judges of complex ethical questions is worth celebrating. | Shakespeare’s plays are designed to engage the gears of public debate. Conceived in a climate of intense censorship, they had to dodge accusations of partisanship. Shakespeare developed a rare knack for giving play to both sides; perhaps his very survival depended upon it. The legacy is dramas that retain an enduring potential to explore the complexities of any human predicament. In an age when a tweet can reduce political rhetoric to a reflexive twitch, the capacity of these plays to reinstate us as attentive and intelligent judges of complex ethical questions is worth celebrating. |
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