The
following news tidbit caught my eye the other day: “Speaking to Vanity Fair’s Krista Smith, [George] Clooney called Bannon ‘a
schmuck who literally tried everything he could to sell scripts in Hollywood.’
Bannon famously wrote a screenplay for a rap musical update of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, titled The Thing I Am. ‘It’s like a rap Shakespearean thing about the LA
riots. It’s the worst script you’ve ever read,’ Clooney said of Bannon’s
creation. ‘But he was trying to get it made in Hollywood. And had he, he would
still be in Hollywood making movies and kissing my ass to make one of his
films. That’s who he is.’ “
That prompted me to revisit the rough draft of a post I had started,
but then put aside, a few months ago, after seeing, for a second time, the
excellent 2017 Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of Julius Caesar: https://www.osfashland.org/productions/2017-plays/julius-caesar.aspx While watching the exchange in the first act
among the conspirators Cassius, Casca, and Brutus, about Caesar’s seizure after
refusing Mark Antony’s offer of an emperor’s
crown, the scene suddenly took on a startlingly modern, ominous new meaning for
me. Before explaining myself, I’ll try to assist you in hearing and seeing it
yourselves first, by directing your special attention to the verbiage I’ve put
in ALL CAPS):
CASCA I can as well be hanged as tell the
manner of it: it was mere foolery; I did not
mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer
him a crown;--yet 'twas not a crown
neither, 'twas one of these coronets;--and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by: and still as he refused it, THE
RABBLEMENT HOOTED AND CLAPPED THEIR CHAPPED HANDS AND THREW UP THEIR SWEATY
NIGHT-CAPS AND UTTERED SUCH A DEAL OF STINKING
BREATH because Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked Caesar; for he swounded and fell down at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.
CASSIUS
CASCA I
know not what you mean by that; but, I am sure,
Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not
clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in
the theatre, I am no true man.
the theatre, I am no true man.
CASCA Marry,
before he fell down, when he perceived the
common herd was glad he refused the crown, he
plucked me ope his doublet and offered them his
throat to cut. An I had been a man of any
occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues. And so he fell. When he came to himself again, HE SAID, IF HE HAD DONE OR SAID ANY THING AMISS, HE DESIRED THEIR WORSHIPS TO THINK IT WAS HIS INFIRMITY.Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried 'Alas, good soul!' and forgave him with all their hearts: but there's no heed to be taken of them; IF CAESAR HAD STABBED THEIR MOTHERS, THEY WOULD HAVE DONE NO LESS….
occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues. And so he fell. When he came to himself again, HE SAID, IF HE HAD DONE OR SAID ANY THING AMISS, HE DESIRED THEIR WORSHIPS TO THINK IT WAS HIS INFIRMITY.Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried 'Alas, good soul!' and forgave him with all their hearts: but there's no heed to be taken of them; IF CAESAR HAD STABBED THEIR MOTHERS, THEY WOULD HAVE DONE NO LESS….
Remind
you of anything? Do you now hear the same chilling new meaning that I first heard
in July? It’s not just that Casca’s cynical observation (“If Caesar had stabbed
their mothers”, the Roman mob would “forgive him with all their hearts”) is
eerily echoed by Trump’s notorious boast at the start of his campaign (“I could
stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any
voters.”)
That
would be chilling enough. But it’s also that Casca’s sneering description of Caesar’s
epileptic seizure is horribly echoed by Trump’s equally notorious, cruel
pantomime of a disabled reporter’s awkward “infirmity”. And finally, it’s also that
Casca’s elitist description of the Roman mob with such revolting (so to speak)
disgust, constitutes an uncannily apt description of the deplorable,
bloodthirsty audiences we all saw repeatedly at the Trump rallies, where he
delivered those awful lines, and all too many more.
In July in Ashland, as I listened to Casca’s speeches in that
scene, the nauseating, appalling thought first occurred to me, that what
Trump’s political rivals (first the other Republican candidates, then Hillary
Clinton), the media, as well as sane decent people in America and around the
world all thought – and, I believe, still think to this day – heard and saw as the
spontaneous, uncontrollable outbursts of a demented, cruel, powerful, toxic
narcissist, were actually lines delivered
by an actor playing the role that he would seem to have been born and raised to
play --- lines “written” as it were, by a “playwright”, Steve Bannon, who
apparently took to heart Shakespeare’s revelation that “all the world’s a
stage” -- especially a 21st century world in which news about the
governing of the greatest empire of our
world is heard not by a handful of plebeians in a Roman mob, but by an entire
globe, in a world where news travels instantly to the eyes and ears of
billions.
The only question I cannot answer with confidence is whether:
ONE: Trump was a conscious
actor who, like the pros in the OSF troupe members who have trained all
their lives to simulate authenticity in expression of emotion and thought, knew exactly what he was doing, and for what
dark purpose; or,
TWO Steve Bannon was the one and only Svengali in possession
of the Shakespearean “script” for manipulation of a national mob; and Bannon,
by Iago-like insinuation and flattery, fed Trump these horrible lines, while concealing
from Trump that Trump was actually a puppet on Bannon’s Shakespearean string,
dancing to his white supremacist tune.
And frankly, I can’t decide which would be worse.
So, as I read George Clooney’s sharp, dismissive sarcasm of
Steven Bannon, the humor I might ordinarily have enjoyed in his derision took on a very sour taste indeed. Instead of mortification, I suspect that
Bannon got a great kick out of Clooney’s comments when (not if) he read them.
After all, or rather, after November 8, 2016, Bannon must know that it is he who
has had the last laugh. Not only did his “show” go on, it is one we all will be
forced to watch for what could be another three-plus years---a very long run in
a kind of house-of-horrors “Playhouse California”: one which we can try to walk
out of, but, as the usher (Sarah Huckabee Sanders?) would inform us, we can never
leave.
So, as
vile as Steve Bannon is (and anyone who watched any portion of Charlie Rose’s
recent interview of Bannon can see how vile he really is), I feel compelled to
give Satan his due, and credit Bannon with having fooled us all, bigtime. Of
course, I don’t do this out of admiration, but because I believe one saving
grace that can be salvaged from understanding the above, is that perhaps we
will never again underestimate Bannon’s power and insight, as George Clooney
did.
Let us beware of thinking that now that Bannon is physically out of the
White House, we can take comfort that he will not exert any more influence over
Trump. Let us not kid ourselves, there is no way Trump is going to ever fire
this guy. Bannon’s Manchurian candidate, whether witting or unwitting, is
always within electronic reach of those puppetry strings. Bannon has shown
himself to be no apprentice playwright, but one who not only understood
Shakespeare, he upped the ante and produced his own modern-day Julius Caesar, using the US presidential
campaign as his stage!
It has long
since become customary to acknowledge the profound insight into human nature
and universality of Shakespeare’s plays; and yet I suspect it is a custom honored
more in unreflective praise than in actual belief. Great genius that he was, I’d
imagine that most people would be surprised if one of the plays Shakespeare wrote
more than four centuries ago actually turned out to be startlingly relevant to
our most pressing national concerns today. And yet, now we have the nightmare
I’ve outlined above, which constitutes dramatic (in both senses) proof that
Shakespeare was not trafficking in fantasy when he had Casca speak those words.
A demagogue’s power to energize and organize a mob behind a diabolical agenda
has not changed in kind in two millennia, only in scale.
I’m sure
this post of mine has also brought to mind for some of you reading it the sharp
controversy raised by the recent Shakespeare in the Central Park Julius Caesar (although you might be
surprised to learn that a frankly anti-fascist production of Julius Caesar was staged in the
Thirties), in which Caesar bore a strong physical resemblance to Trump himself.
But now I hope you see that behind that controversy about the propriety of
suggesting the assassination of a modern demagogue is the deeper controversy
that never happened, about how a great government was hijacked using a
Shakespearean strategy. Let’s start paying attention.
Before
I close, I want to get back to George Clooney’s reference to Bannon’s failed Coriolanus spinoff. Clooney being as
wonky as he is hunky, I wonder whether he read the following two articles, as I did
in July, about that Central Park Julius
Caesar (and now I feel yet another chill, as I think about how Central Park
is also identified with Trump, in his unrelenting unrepentant campaign against
the innocent young men of color whom Trump demonized):
“ 'Trump-like' 'Julius Caesar' stirs debate” by 06/10/17
“ 'Trump-like' 'Julius Caesar' stirs debate” by 06/10/17
Moody
started thusly: “The audience gathered in New York's Delacorte Theater in
Central Park for a new rendition of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar gasped in delight when the title character first
strode across the stage, not in a toga, but adorned in a business suit and tie
that fell unfashionably below his belt and sporting a presidential yellow coif
of hair atop his head. Their reaction to the Trump-like character subsided
as the audience assumedly skipped ahead to the scene when they would witness
(spoiler alert!) the gory assassination of this blonde, boisterous, Trumpian
emperor.”
"Behold,
Steve Bannon’s Hip-Hop Shakespeare Rewrite: Coriolanus" by Daniel
Pollack-Pelzner
Pollack-Pelzner (which I strongly recommend you read in full) discusses that very same Bannon Coriolanus script
that Clooney derided (here are some highlights):
“Soon
after Bannon was appointed chief strategist for President elect Donald J. Trump,
profiles noted that he was a co author of a rap musical based on Shakepeare’s
Roman tragedy Coriolanus…Mr. Bannon’s
Coriolanus set in LA during the 1992
riots, is deadly serious….his adaptation of Shakespeare offers an unexpected
clue….[it] draws its title from one of Coriolanus’s
lines, “The Thing I Am”. It suggests the chilling conflict that Mr. Bannon
would like to play out on a national stage…His Coriolanus script, written in the late 1990s with Julia Jones, a
screenwriter, offers a vision of his Shakespeare-fueled fantasy: a violent
macho conflict to purge corrupt leaders and pave the way for a new strongman to
emerge.…Mr. Bannon’s thrill at masculine violence still resonates…In Shakespeare’s
play, a Roman patrician rebukes the mob as ‘mutinous members’ of the body
politic, insulting their leader as ‘the great toe of this assembly.’ In Mr.
Bannon’s rewrite, the patrician called Mack-Daddy of South Central, walks over
to the people’s chief, GRABS THE MAN’S CROTCH and updates the insult by
replacing ‘toe’ with a vulgar word for genitals. CROTCH GRABBING isn’t just
locker-room talk here; it’s the currency of power…As chief strategist to Mr.
Trump, Mr. Bannon could see his vision of racial aggression, driven by a
hammer-headed hero who doesn’t have to pander to the craven media, gain an
audience far beyond SS’s globe.”
Is it
possible that Trump was under Bannon’s influence even as early as 2005 when the
Access Hollywood video was shot? Might Steve Bannon have leaked the
tape himself? The mind reels at the prospect of such a daredevil political
highwire act, but the fact remains, Donald Trump is the one sitting in the Oval
Office today, so I don’t rule out even such a preposterous possibility.
To
conclude, if my above claim that Bannon deliberately generated modern political
theater from the lines of Julius Caesar was
in doubt for you, I hope that the above analysis by Moody makes clear to you
that Bannon knew Shakespeare’s Roman plays really, really well, and recognized
their modern relevance and usefulness. So, dear friends, Americans, and countrypeeps,
the fault will not be in the stars in the sky, but in our naïve acceptance of
the “stars” on our screens, if we fail to recognize what is real in Donald
Trump’s “act”, and what is fake (i.e., scripted by Steve Bannon).
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
Thank you for the link to the VF article. I had no idea Bannon's big dream was to be a big success in Hollywood.
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