Delta and BofA Pull Out of Trump Murder Play

Shakespeare in the Park now includes a Donald Trump character as a modern Julius Caesar being knifed to death by Brutus and his buddies. At least the Central Park version this summer. This might be more provocative if it weren’t the millionth time Trump has been symbolically slaughtered in everything from rap videos to the Facebook feeds of white women sick from their own privilege. Remove politics from the equation for a moment. Had you killed Obama on stage, you’d actually have been taking some serious risks. Stabbing the current President earns you a Buzzfeed front page laud for making millennials think.

The U.S. President is still the U.S. President so two old blue chippers in Delta Airlines and Bank of America announced they were pulling their sponsorship of the New York public theater production. Both companies issued statements claiming to have been duped about the nature of the play, thinking they were sponsoring Shakespeare for the kids, as opposed to Resistance Theater for grown women whose parents still chip in for rent.

“The Public Theater chose to present Julius Caesar in such a way that was intended to provoke and offend. Had this intention been made known to us, we would have decided not to sponsor it.”

Oskar Eustis, the theater production’s director, insists the updated Julius Caesar in no way advocates violence toward the President. Which is odd, since there is no tale more tired to presidential killings than Julius Caesar. John Wilkes Booth quoted the death of Caesar after assassinating Lincoln. And now you’ve updated the main character to be the President.

Nice try, Oskar. Don’t think Trump isn’t checking your immigration status. Personally. He’s down at the bureau with a legal pad and red pen. Extreme vetting may involve your testicles. We have reached a point well beyond which anyone add anything new to the denigrate Trump body of work. It’s been done. Sports team smack seems like a distant memory.

_{Photo credit: Joan Marcus/The Public Theater}