Dallas and New York: A Couple of Miles Apart
This is the honest to goodness truth.
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They are performing The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Dallas was not alone. Boston got nasty emails, too.
The Lenox company has received roughly 40 such messages, including one that wished the theater “the worst possible life you could have and hope you all get sick and die.” At Shakespeare Dallas, executive and artistic director Raphael Parry says his company has received about 80 messages, including threats of rape, death, and wishes that the theater’s staff is “sent to ISIS to be killed with real knives.”
By the way, this is not the first time the play has used contemporary figures as Caesar or Antony. And, obviously these people don’t know what happened after Caesar was assassinated. This is not a pro-assassination play.
Yeah, you should know that I’m shaking my damn head as I type this.
Back in 1967, I saw the play “MacBird” in Los Angeles with the great character actor Phil Bruns playing the lead role. Some people got worked up over that one too.
But people threatening theater companies for putting on ANY Shakespeare play just shows the basic ignorance rampant in our country. As Dubya once said, “Our childrens is learning.”
1There is apparently no cure for stupid. Or shamelessness, either.
2I saw that story in the Dallas Daily Disappointment newspaper. Surprising since the Drumpf crowd prolly enjoyed West Side Story.
3Yeah. I would totally expect a state that would go to Defcon infinity over Jade Helm to fully understand what went on in a Shakspeare play or for that matter even know who Shakspeare is.
4That Shakespeare was such a Liberal. Really, someone should Tudor these people.
5Wow! Dueling with the long dead Shakespeare. The snacilbupeR have upped their game from the days of debating with Tinky Winky and fictional TV characters. Somehow “taking on the classics” doesn’t mean what they think it means.
Thanks Ivanka.
6Aaaand a few years ago another company put on a Julius Caesar with the role played by a tall skinny erudite black guy. Did liberals lose their **** and start screaming death threats? They did not.
7These Trumpanistas have never read the play. They’ve never read any Shakespeare. They take pride in that. The fact that any time people get offended by what someone has said or done, they hurl death threats, is, to me, a sign of how low standards of civility and behavior have sunk. And it’s not just Dallas theatre companies that have received death threats; it’s theater companies US-wide. It’s vile and ridiculous.
8My little bride contributes that the Trumpinistas prolly prefer Billy Shakespeare’s fishing rods o’er his writings! Well I think she’s ever so clever.
9Bravo, Kate Dungan, for your historic pun. Better refer the rethugs to the Puritans who closed down the English theaters because: sin. Sounds remarkably like what’s been going on with this rendition of King Leer (Dallas version).
10This is what happens when our children isn’t learning and getting a good edumacation.
11Wonder how many outraged uneducated morons would scream an screech if Ancient Greek drama was produced. Of course the morons wouldn’t understand the use of the language but that never stops them from screeching.
12These conservatives have had no exposure to Shakespeare since maybe high school when they were spoon fed an excerpt of “Romeo and Juliet.”
The story lines of most opera would truly baffle them. (that assumes they had the stamina to watch the performance) Wagner. Norse gods. Incest. The destruction of the world. They would approve of Wagner’s music since he was one of Hitler’s favorite composers.
13They really are morons. They can’t tell the difference between Shakespeare troupes in NYC and Dallas and they wish that the theater has “the worst possible life” and that the actors get “killed by ISIS with real knives”. I haven’t heard such trash talk since i got cornered by the 2nd grade class bully on the playground.
14“By the way, this is not the first time the play has used contemporary figures as Caesar or Antony.”
Yes. Such as in 2015 when the same NYC Shakespeare company, on the same stage in NYC’s Central Park, did the SAME play with OBAMA as “Caesar”.
And the howling from the Reich-wing over that….?
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