Watch a Reading of Steve Bannon’s Surreal Shakespearean Screenplay About the L.A. Riots

Steve Bannon, a key (currently embattled) adviser to Donald Trump, was once a Hollywood power player (or “wannabe,� according to Sean Penn), and back in his Hollywood days, he co-wrote a script whose plot combined, of all things, Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and the 1992 L.A. riots. The script, which Bannon wrote with Julia Jones, was never produced, but has become an object of fascination for those who want to understand Bannon’s radical nationalist view of the world. NowThis staged a reading of the screenplay, which is titled The Thing I Am, with a cast of baffled actors. You can watch the reading above, which reveals just how much Bannon loved to pepper the N-word into his dialogue, gives you a taste of his love of vigilante violence, and includes such jarring turns of phrase as, “I will return to rep my peeps,� and “We’re not here to save your homies.�