The Kennedy Center in Washington on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump announced February 1 he is closing the venue for two years for a thorough renovation, as the storied Washington arts complex struggles with declining ticket sales and a backlash from performers.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Everyone has a talent, even Donald Trump. In his case, he’s supremely adept at taking something that is noble, successful, great – to use a favourite term of his – and wrecking it. Case in point: the United States of America.
So perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise to see him do the very same to one of its great cultural institutions. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Mr. Trump announced Sunday, will close for renovations for two years. This follows as despotic a move as they come: the effectively unilateral renaming of the celebrated Washington venue in Mr. Trump’s own honour, putting his name before and above that of Mr. Kennedy, who had led a fundraising campaign to establish the performing arts centre and for whom it was named as a living memorial after his assassination.
The destruction did not begin with Mr. Trump’s shameless, shameful renaming, but with the removal of the team previously running the storied Center. The new board chair? Why, Mr. Trump himself, whose greatest credential, after unchecked power, is a complete inability to understand how much he doesn’t understand about arts and culture.
Before Sunday, Mr. Trump – petty philistine, agent of chaos – promised that things were great, with major improvements under way.
Things were not great. Shows and artists were pulling out faster than you can say Rigoletto – including Hamilton, soprano Renée Fleming, actor Issa Rae and Canadian singer Amanda Rheaume. “I’m horrified by everything that’s happening and when I saw that he had appointed himself chairman, I was like, ‘There’s no way I can do this,’” Ms. Rheaume told the Ottawa Citizen.
Composer Philip Glass cancels Kennedy Center symphony premiere after Trump takeover
Last month, the Washington National Opera (WNO) ended its decades-long Kennedy Center residency. Last week, the great composer Philip Glass cancelled the world premiere of his Lincoln symphony (“witness history,” the Center had promised). Last year, Tom Cruise turned down a once-coveted Kennedy Center Honor; scheduling conflicts, he reportedly said.
Patrons have been running from the place too, with ticket sales down significantly. The empty seats became symbolic of a government devoid of many things: empathy, decency, taste.
Mr. Trump’s closure announcement (which blindsided staff, National Symphony Orchestra musicians, and already-booked artists and crews) sure seems like one way to save face.
On Truth Social, Mr. Trump said the shutdown is needed to fix up the place he described as “tired, broken and dilapidated,” and said the refresh will turn it into a world-class bastion of the arts – which is exactly what it had been, before he took over and made it too embarrassing for both performers or patrons to appear there.
He had talked about Kennedy Center renovations (some of which, granted, are needed) before. But in an October post, Mr. Trump said the Center would remain “fully open during construction, renovation, and beautification.” And then: “I am doing the same thing to the United States of America, but only on a ‘slightly’ larger scale!”
Yes indeed. Is there anything good this gang can’t destroy?
David Shribman: Welcome to the Age of Trump, Kennedy Center
On Sunday, Mr. Trump said the work would proceed much more quickly and successfully if the place shut down – as determined by him. He announced, with board approval (he’s the chair, remember), that the Kennedy Center will close on July 4, “in honor of the 250th Anniversary of our Country.” The guy can sure pick a metaphor. (If he knows what that is.)
And what will happen to this modernist gem? Mr. Trump is musing about marble armrests, which would not only be laughably gaudy, but exceedingly uncomfortable, with a dramatic impact on acoustics.
He has said he will take down “some” of the building’s iconic marble, too. Will that include any of Mr. Kennedy’s quotes that appear on its walls? One of these contemplates “an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.”
Which quote of Mr. Trump’s might replace that? Is there enough wall in the world for his meanderings?
The WNO will perform three planned productions elsewhere: Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha; Robert Ward’s The Crucible, based on the Arthur Miller play; and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. The three American works “explore themes at the heart of what makes our country great,” WNO artistic director Francesca Zambello said in a statement.
Treemonisha “celebrates the triumph of education over ignorance.” The Crucible “is a cautionary tale about a righteous mob that murders innocent women and tears families apart.” And West Side Story is a modern spin on Romeo and Juliet, which Mr. Bernstein called “an out and out plea for racial tolerance.”
Those are some pretty overt metaphors that even Mr. Trump should be able to understand. And yet.