Commonwealth Shakespeare Company is again partnering with the right wing conservative Federalist Society for this year’s “Shakespeare and the Law” program, which “takes on the themes of belief and the burden of proof through the lens of six Shakespeare plays,” according to the theater, which is based a Babson College in Wellesley and offers annual free performances on Boston Common. The event is Feb. 12 at 6 p.m. at the New England Conservatory Black Box Theater, 225 St. Botolph St., Boston.
According to the Federalist Society: “Law schools and the legal profession are currently strongly dominated by a form of orthodox liberal ideology which advocates a centralized and uniform society. While some members of the academic community have dissented from these views, by and large they are taught simultaneously with (and indeed as if they were) the law. The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order.”
Following staged readings of Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline,” “Hamlet,” “Henry IV, Part 1,” “Julius Caesar,” “Measure for Measure” and “Othello,” organizers write, “judges, prosecutors, attorneys, activists and commentators will discuss and debate how allegations of impropriety should be measured and judged in the courtroom, the workplace, the college campus, and the Congressional hearing room.”
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company has been collaborating with the right wing group for years. “The Federalist Society, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, and McCarter & English, LLP present their 15th Annual Shakespeare and the Law program featuring a staged reading of Measure by Measure followed by a discussion of the legal and political issues addressed in the play and their application to today’s headlines,” the Boston Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society announced in 2017. Past collaborations includes a “Shakespeare and Leadership” event in 2012 and “Shakespeare and the Law tackles politics and race in President Barack Obama’s America” in 2009.
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