Shakespeare Actor Beaten By Protesters While Practicing His Line “Thou Dost Protest Too Much” At Crosswalk.
Henry Johnson, age 37, from Knoxville, TN, was attacked by a mob of violent protesters on Tuesday at the corner of Dodge and Cook streets in downtown Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Although expected to fully recover physically, Mr. Johnson has a long road ahead of recovering mentally, sources said.
At 2:38 pm on Tuesday afternoon, authorities state that Mr. Johnson was standing at the crosswalk mumbling the famous “Thou Dost Protest Too Much” line from Shakespeare’s historic play “Hamlet.” Just as the crosswalk sign turned to “walk”, a large group of 2 women began to berate Mr. Johnson and his untimely, misplaced rhetoric. “You don’t know what you are talking about you loser!”
Shocked and dismayed, Mr. Johnson took off his inexpensive headphones from Walgreen’s and replied “Excuse me. I couldn’t hear you?” This is the point when everything would tragically turn violent. Screaming “We were just complaining about the coffee we just got at the gas station! Now you are comparing us to protesters!”, the 45 year old Lake Geneva twins began swinging purses, hitting Mr. Johnson right between the eyes and knocking the skinny long haired Shakespeare actor dizzy.
Regaining his balance, but staying fully in character, Mr. Johnson fought back with “Something Is Rotten In The State Of Denmark!.” Confused, the ladies continued to beat him yelling “This is Missouri you fucking moron!”
Dodging traffic while fighting off the horrific attack from these middle aged crazy ladies, Mr. Johnson, also knows as Doug, frantically tried to get himself out of the situation. Unfortunately, Doug’s focus was amiss, and he spewed out the infamous “To Be Or Not Too Be, That Is The Question”, as blood spattered from his nose.
Not only were the redneck sister twins not impressed, they were now infuriated. They recalled that line from their 7th grade English class, reminding them of their last year in school. “Oh hell no! You ain’t going to spread your Aflac words around here! We’ve been watching the TV!” At this point, Doug was fighting for his life, and, to some extent, his acting career.
Just as it seemed the situation was turning deadly, the Lake Geneva Sheriff came around the corner, stumbling upon the unsightly occurrence. “Tammy! Danielle! Stop beating that poor man!” witnesses claimed to hear.
Bloodied. Dizzy. Disoriented. That was now Doug, the hopeless Shakespeare actor who, as it turns out, was in the wrong city to begin with. His one man show was scheduled at a Tavern in Springfield that evening, less than 5 miles away. Saddened by his misfortune of not having GPS in his 1994 Cutlass Ciera, Doug decided to stay at a local hotel in Lake Geneva and drink his sorrows away.
On his third Hazy IPA at a local brewery, head down and psyche broken, Doug heard an announcement from a guy, who eerily looked similar to himself. “Hey everyone, the open mic starts in 10 minutes!”
***UPDATE***
We last caught up with Doug in his hometown of Knoxville to see how he is doing, 2 months after the protest rumble in Missouri. Unfortunately, his career as a Shakespeare actor came to an abrupt end. However, in a surprising turn of events, Doug is now hitting the local Open Mic Comedy Scene 4 nights a week, and has been told by local show coordinator Dave Jacoby that there is a “very good chance” that Doug could be an open mic host one night in the future.