The Public Theater's new Free Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar, which has stirred controversy with its depiction of a Trump-like Caesar, has opened to a standing ovation after the production became the focus of right-leaning criticism and funding withdrawals.
Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public and also the director of the show in New York's Central Park, opened the evening with a speech on Monday that made clear the company stood behind the work, despite the withdrawal of funding support by Bank of America and Delta Airlines.
He addressed a supportive, industry-heavy crowd that included Alec Baldwin; Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the director whose Broadway staging of Jitney had won a Tony Award the night before; actors Brian d'Arcy James (13 Reasons Why, Spotlight) and Bill Irwin (Legion); and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller.
"Anybody who watches this play tonight -- and I'm sorry there's going to be a couple of spoiler alerts here - will know that neither Shakespeare nor the Public Theater could possibly advocate violence as a solution to political problems, and certainly not assassination," Eustis said.
"The event here is not my show. The event here is the right-wing hate machine," he added in an interview following the opening night performance.
Eustis cited prior productions of Julius Caesar that have overtly referred to contemporary political figures, including one in 2012 that depicted Caesar as an Obama-like leader who is assassinated. Those prior production went off without controversy, he noted.
The audience attending the Public's Free Shakespeare in the Park that night saw a production that leaned heavily on the topical references in the first half of the show, with Julius Caesar (played by Gregg Henry) sporting blonde hair and overlong ties and mimicking Trump's hand gestures. Caesar's wife (played by Tina Benko) spoke with a Slovenian accent, similar to Melania Trump's, and there were nods to pink pussy hats and Twitter.
The story's assassination scene, which is the main focus of the controversy, was bloody - but the subsequent events played like a warning, as the murder's noblest political goals were crushed.
