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Moments after they have plunged their knives into Rome's leader in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," the lean-and-hungry Cassius asks his co-conspirator Brutus: "How many ages hence shall our lofty scene be acted over, in states unborn and accents yet unknown?"

This week, we were reminded of the answer: centuries, and as far away from ancient Rome as the island of Manhattan.

Now we, as lovers of art or watchers of mass media, face a different question: How many times must we see the same sad cycle of phony outrage when artists try to apply their imagination to the reality around them?

The steps are depressingly familiar:

Step 1: Artists do a thing • Here, it's the Public Theater, a long-established and well-regarded nonprofit theater group in New York, staging a modern-dress version of "Julius Caesar." To give the play relevance, artistic director Oskar Eustis did what many theater directors have done: modeled Caesar on their country's current leader. Here, that meant putting Caesar (played by Gregg Henry) in a yellow coif and red tie and giving his wife, Calpurnia (Tina Benko), a vaguely Slavic accent.

Step 2: Right-wing media attacks • "NYC play appears to assassinate Trump," blared the headline from Fox News' "Fox & Friends" on Sunday morning. This was after 16 preview performances in Central Park and on the day before its premiere Monday night. No context is given, no mention of Shakespeare, just that a guy who looks like Donald Trump is "brutally stabbed to death by women and minorities." (Oh, and when right-wing outlets say "New York" in such a pejorative fashion, remember that — as Aaron Sorkin taught us on "The West Wing" — they mean "Jewish.")

Step 3: The storm brews • Let social media go at it for a few hours. Attacks on art and intellectual pursuits are mandatory. Facts are optional and usually just get in the way.

Step 4: Corporate America caves in • The folks mobilized in step 3 take particular aim at companies that sponsor or underwrite the work in question. The companies, fearful of being labeled hostile to Trump or his rabid following, bow to pressure. In this case, Delta Air Lines and Bank of America announced they would pull their support of the Public Theater's production.

Step 5: The backlash rises • The left side of the spectrum, or just the rational people who know that it's Shakespeare — or, hell, just understand things that happen onstage are, you know, NOT REAL — now play catch-up. They decry Delta and Bank of America for cowardly backing down to the willfully illiterate. Boycotts are urged. Online petitions are organized.

Step 6: Hypocrisy is found • The second-wave anger of the left almost always finds examples of the other fellow's ox being gored and how differently it was handled. Here, it was a 2012 production by Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater of "Julius Caesar" with a tall, thin black actor in the title role, alluding to Barack Obama. It's noted that the left didn't get in a lather in this production and that conservative media rather enjoyed it. It's also noted that Delta Air Lines was a sponsor of the Guthrie at the time.

Step 7: A defense of art • Also known as the "closing the barn door after the horse is out" move. Here, the Public Theater put out a statement defending the production, noting that it "in no way advocates violence toward anyone. Shakespeare's play, and our production, makes the opposite point: Those who attempt to defend democracy by undemocratic means pay a terrible price and destroy the very thing they are trying to save."

Step 8: Unrelated real-life event blamed • The folks who started this in the first place, having invested themselves in fanning outrage, look to the news for justification of their original complaints. That came in this case Wednesday with the unfortunate shooting incident in Alexandria, Va., where Republicans were practicing for a charity baseball game. Five people were wounded, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. The shooter, who died from gunshot wounds inflicted by the Capitol Police in Scalise's security detail, was identified in the media as a rabid Bernie Sanders supporter. Some on the right tried to cite the "Julius Caesar" production as a triggering event for this crazed leftie — ignoring inconvenient facts like his past history of violence or the toxic rhetoric that has come from their own side (e.g., Eric Trump saying Democratic critics are "not even people").

These cycles can take a day or two, sometimes longer. And once one ends, another is stirred up and it all repeats, an endless Kabuki show of phony outrage that distracts from real dangers lurking in the dark.

Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Follow him on Twitter @moviecricket. Email him at spmeans@sltrib.com.