Meryl Streep took time away from being nominated for any acting award available to perform in New York’s Central Park, at the Delacorte Theater, for a tribute to Shakespeare. Always the chameleon, Streep came fully (fat) suited out and rouged in orange, as Donald Trump. She performed “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” with Christine Baranski.
If there was any confusion as to whether or not Streep was lampooning the Donald and his infamous chauvinism, she cleared that up early on with these lines:
Campaign Action
We could do a deal,
You’ll let me know,
Why it is all the women say no?
Ms. Streep takes every role seriously, which is probably why she’s a national treasure.
“Utterly her idea, beginning to end,” Oskar Eustis, the Public’s artistic director, said after the show. “There were skeptics, there were doubters, but one of those skeptics was not Meryl Streep. She was absolutely sure she could do it. None of us had seen her in costume or makeup, till she walked out tonight.”
Ms. Streep skipped the dinner before the show to get into character, and spent time holed up in her dressing room, preparing. “She was showing us this thing that Donald Trump always does,” said the actress Kate Burton, who shared the dressing room with Ms. Streep along with Ms. Baranski, Lily Rabe and Phylicia Rashad. “He apparently does this thing, where he goes to close to his jacket but it doesn’t close all the way, and so he kind of goes for it and then he tries to close it again.” It was a mannerism that only Ms. Streep seemed to catch, Ms. Burton said. “She treats this like she would her greatest roles: she’s working on it all the time.”
Where did Meryl Streep get her wig? She didn’t, she “did some funky things with pins,” said Hamish Linklater, veteran actor. Tell me you won’t be looking at those tiny Donald Trump hands going to his coat any time you see him from now on? Enjoy a short, but sweet moment … amongst men.