1. It is unfortunate that the theatre company was threatened.

2. Since when did art pull-back from causing offense?

3. Of course, to be consistent, this means that casting traditional white roles (i.e. the vast majority of roles, I should think) with individuals of non-white ethnicities must also be cleansed. Like that's going to happen. Those objecting could see no purpose in having a actor of non-traditional ethnicity utter the words and see what might be uncovered in doing so? What happens when Shakespeare is produced in Korea, or China, or South Africa (black, white, mixed races)? Would allowance be made for an actor of local ethnicity to dare portray the character?

Truly a sad day in the culture wars when artistic inquiry and/or curiosity is conflated with racist oppression.