It was the evening after President Trump had formally taken over the Kennedy Heart and made himself its chairman, and two well-dressed Washington girls had been wandering alongside the plush purple carpet inside its Grand Lobby, so grand it may match the Washington Monument laid on its facet. They reached the eight-foot-tall bronze head of John F. Kennedy that lords over the corridor and seemed forlornly into his eyes.
How for much longer, one girl joked to the opposite, till the statue of the thirty fifth president will get torn down and changed with one of many forty seventh? They laughed bitterly.
It was simply final week that Mr. Trump introduced his plan to purge the Kennedy Heart’s board of its Biden appointees and to put in “an incredible Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” He named one in every of his most fiercely loyal apparatchiks, Richard Grenell, interim president and proclaimed that there could be no extra “ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA” proven. He complained about drag queens performing there and stated it had all turn into too “wokey.” Some artists canceled exhibits. “Welcome to the New Kennedy Heart!” Mr. Trump stated on social media, posting an A.I.-generated picture of himself waving his arms like a conductor in a live performance corridor.
The general public who turned up on the Kennedy Heart on Thursday evening to see performances in its varied theaters had bought their tickets lengthy earlier than any of that was set in movement. Now they discovered themselves at an arts middle on the cusp of turning into one thing completely different — one thing Trumpian.
Some speculated what which may appear like.
“I really feel like we’d simply have ‘Cats’ on rotation transferring ahead,” stated Pamela Deutsch, a documentary movie producer who as soon as labored as an usher on the Kennedy Heart. (Mr. Trump, who as soon as had goals of turning into a Broadway producer, is a longtime fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber.) She was there to catch a set by the comedian W. Kamau Bell. So was Louis Woolard, a 73-year-old psychotherapist from Maryland. What kind of cultural programming did he envision beneath the inventive stewardship of the forty seventh president? “I don’t know,” stated Mr. Woolard. “I assume nation music.”
On the different finish of the Grand Lobby, American Ballet Theater was placing on a manufacturing of “Crime and Punishment,” an effort to make dance out of Dostoyevsky. A 75-year-old actual property funding banker named Wayne Koonce waited in line to have his ticket scanned. “Perhaps the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi shall be invited again now that he’s cozying as much as Putin,” he stated.
For the many individuals in liberal Washington scandalized by Mr. Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Heart, Thursday evening was like a cross between a wake and final name. Drag performers protested outdoors within the chilly, as college students from George Washington College marched round shouting about Mr. Trump. Inside, some well-heeled patrons of the ballet had been actually clutching their pearls as they contemplated the way forward for the establishment. On the different finish of the lobby, copies of one thing designed to appear like a youngsters’s guide referred to as “Do the Work! An Antiracist Exercise E-book” had been being offered forward of Mr. Bell’s stand-up routine. (He co-wrote the guide.)
“, Trump took over, he’s the brand new chairman of the Kennedy Heart,” he stated on the high of his set. The viewers let loose a low boo. “You shouldn’t name it the Kennedy Heart anymore,” he stated. “Let’s name it the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Heart.” Extra booing. “For those who’re going to have folks working it with no experience in any respect,” he continued, “you would possibly as effectively have it named after the man with no experience in any respect.” (Earlier that day, Mr. Kennedy had been confirmed as well being secretary.)
Mr. Bell tore into the president and talked about white supremacy, nationalized well being care, oligarchy, fascism, socialism, transgender rights, slavery, kale chips, Nazidom and different such matters that will presumably qualify as “wokey” beneath new administration. The comedian additionally guessed at what kind of adjustments had been in retailer.
“What number of instances are you able to give Child Rock the Mark Twain award?” he puzzled because the viewers groaned.
On a sofa outdoors the ballet, a husband and spouse — each lecturers from Arlington, Va. — tried to determine what the president meant by “anti-American propaganda.” “I can’t determine it out,” stated the spouse. “Immigrants,” instructed the husband. “However what does that really imply?” requested the spouse.
Some fretted as to whether or not they should boycott the place going ahead. “Like lots of people in Washington,” stated Mr. Koonce, “we’re attempting to determine: Will we proceed to come back? You wish to help the artists, however you don’t wish to help something linked with this philistine, backward motion of the humanities, which is strictly what it’s going to be.”
A lot of what President Trump is as much as in Washington is about payback. He takes his revenge on a city that snubbed him. Final time he was president, some artists accepting the Kennedy Heart honors refused to go to the White Home, and in response he and Melania Trump by no means went to the Kennedy Heart Honors.
Vice President JD Vance, and his spouse, Usha, although, appear to genuinely benefit from the Kennedy Heart’s programming. She has been a member of the opera’s board for greater than a 12 months, and the couple took their younger youngsters there in December for a manufacturing of “Jungle E-book” that the Kennedy Heart described as being advised “via a recent lens by framing Mowgli as a refugee looking for security in a brand new setting.” (In different phrases, probably wokey.) They loved it a lot they went backstage after it was over.
In Mr. Trump’s struggle towards the city’s establishments, the battle over this one can appear low-stakes by comparability. What’s a performing arts middle in comparison with the Justice Division, trans-Atlantic alliances, overseas assist and all the remaining? Nonetheless, it has struck a chord. Folks perambulating up the Grand Lobby on Thursday — a lot of whom had been federal employees now fearing for his or her jobs — appeared particularly agitated by what was occurring there.
Michael Grey, a 63-year-old retired refugee officer who labored for the State Division starting beneath George H.W. Bush, was there to see the ballet. Requested what he thought concerning the president’s proclamation about anti-American propaganda, Mr. Grey stated, “I believe it’s nonsense.” However he was capable of take the lengthy view.
“Issues come they usually go,” he stated, “however the arts don’t, and the love of the humanities doesn’t.”
