Back in the day, in "Jolly Old England", the Globe Theater was the place to be. That new avant garde playwright, William Shakespeare's plays were the talk of London.
While today, attending a Shakespearean play is considered an exercise for the intellectual elite, he actually wrote for the great unwashed masses. And in those days, unwashed was not a term to be ignored.
His plays were considered crude of language, loud, and broad of action. Women's parts were played by men in drag, or possibly women playing men playing women. Who knows. But since they had no sound systems in those days, the actors projected to the cheap seats with voices that could make the walls shake. To use an old show biz phrase, they chewed the scenery. The emoted! They hammed it up. They sold the show.
Everything happening on the stage was loud, crude, broad, and obvious. Pop quiz: Does this remind you of anyone? Once we had a movie that posited The Manchurian Candidate. Today I give you the Shakespearean Candidate.
The man comes on stage shouting, insulting, and swinging his arms. He looks like he is wearing a yellow furry creature on his head. He constantly informs all who will listen of his greatness and his wealth. He makes it sound like, if you aren't a billionaire able to finance your own campaign, you have no right to run for President. I do not think that that is what the founders had in mind.
Through all of this his language is rude and crude. He most definitely plays to the cheap seats. The press loves him, not as a candidate, but as a side show. But the sideshow has somehow become the main attraction. He is not my candidate. He is not likable and he is not Presidential. He tells us that he will be a great President. I am not so sure. But if he becomes the Republican candidate, I will vote for him because the alternatives are far worse.
So if you will excuse me, I have to go practice saying President Trump.
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