I honestly thought this was a joke. As a stage director, I couldn’t believe that a Broadway show—a drama, supposedly— would stoop this low. My head has been in a continuous state of eruption since I found out the report was accurate.

George Clooney has a vanity project on Broadway, a stage adaptation of his well-received 2005 movie about Edward R. Murrow’s high stakes showdown with demagogue Joe McCarthy at the height of his power. He co-wrote the screenplay and directed while also playing a supporting role. Now, twenty years later, Clooney has moved himself into the starring role as Murrow (previously played by a better and more Murrow-like actor, David Strathairn).

The play has been getting luke-warm reviews, but none of the ones I read mentioned this little detail: At the end of the play, which is supposed to be about the importance of a courageous press that “speaks truth to power” and is trusted by the public to be fair and uncorruptible, a giant photo of Elon Musk giving the alleged “Nazi salute” is projected on the backdrop.

It was not a Nazi salute, and the Axis news media that represented it as such proved just how far the profession of journalism has fallen since the halcyon days of Edward R. Morrow. But the photo surely isn’t intended to convey that message. Clooney, or some lunatic, with Clooney’s approval, was trying to equate McCarthyism with the Trump administration, and McCarthy’s totalitarian methods with Musk. It’s such a bizarre and idiotic analogy that I can’t properly critique it because I don’t comprehend the thinking behind it. It is lizard-brain level at best, and I always thought Clooney was smarter than that. (My dog Spuds is smarter than that.)

But reports are that the Trump Deranged Broadway audiences gasp and react as if this is brilliant commentary. I would have walked out. Any decent American or responsible theater-goer should walk out.

I still am hoping this is a hoax.