Kevin Spacey bashes cancel culture in first performance since exoneration: ‘I am sick of this false world’

nypost.com:

“Hollywood comeback.”The two-time Oscar-winning actor, 64, took to the stage for the first time since being acquitted of sexual assault charges in London in July.The “House of Cards” alum performed a monologue at the Sheldonian Theatre, an architectural jewel inside the heart of the University of Oxford, from the play “Timon of Athens” written by William Shakespeare in the early 1600s.Spacey was introduced to the audience by British author, political commentator and Post columnist Douglas Murray, who had just finished giving a lecture on the damaging effects of cancel culture in honor of the late Sir Roger Scruton, an English philosopher, writer and social critic who died in January 2020 at 75.Scruton, a government housing adviser, wrongly lost his job in 2019 after he appeared to repeat antisemitic statements and denied Islamophobia was a problem during a magazine interview with the New Statesman.“In an era of cancellation and defenestration, we sometimes forget that we both cannot go on like this and that we have been here before,” Murray said. “We know this because our greatest writers and artists have addressed this question in their own times.

When Roger was going through his own battle with the shallows, I often thought of Shakespeare’s rarely performed but great play ‘Timon of Athens.’ Timon has the whole world before him.

He is surrounded by friends and admirers. He is generous to all. Yet, he falls on hard times and when he does absolutely everybody deserts him.

He is left with nothing and nobody, and risks being filled with despair and rage. It does not help that he is shadowed by the cynical philosopher Apemantus, who has warned him that just such a desertion might occur.”“I adore this scene and should like to.