I have just spent a couple weeks in England, in part for the pleasure of being far away from news of Trump and his works. But every time I spoke, people would hear the accent and say, “Oh, American?” They had that, ‘did you vote for that guy,’ look, so I began to consider claiming to be Canadian. But it was enough to deflect attention from the Donald to ask how Prime Minister May was doing with that Brexit thing.

You’d think the traveler would lose touch with the fast moving news of Washington, but not so. When I left, the Senate looked incapable of passing healthcare reform, and when I returned they’d proven incapable.There was smoke in regard to Trump and Russia, and now the pilot on the return trip could hardly see to land the plane..

Abroad, I tried to take my mind off the subject with stately homes, a look at where several distant ancestors began — in Swansea, Wales, in Gotherington, Gloucestershire, and in a Wiltshire church in Idmiston where a pair were married in 1630 before sailing to America. I also enjoyed a Shakespeare tour led by the wonderful scholar Charles Nicholl that included five plays in six days. Oddly, however, this immersion was as if I’d never torn myself away from CNN, FOX, and MSNBC.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. The intrigues of Washington and of Jacobean drama aren’t that different. Washington Post publisher Kay Graham and her friend and editorial page editor, Meg Greenfield, used to play hooky from the Watergate scandal to attend movie matinees, but it may have been more of a busman’s holiday. They were just substituting one drama for another. Before becoming a journalist, Maureen Dowd, the Times columnist, was a literature major with a special interest in Shakespeare And she regards that as good training.

Why? Because Washington bears a family resemblance to a royal court with palace intrigue, figurative, if not literal, knifings in the corridors of power, dynastic feuds and other trappings familiar from plays like Lear and Richard III. So, following the capital city’s mix of lurid tragedy, absurd comedy and weird history is a lot like being a drama critic.

In “The Tempest” at the Barbican we saw Simon Russell Beale as Prospero, a man who has been dissed and has nursed a grudge for years. He gets a chance at vengeance on those who have wronged him, but he relents in the end and adjures the dark arts. Trump, like Nixon before him, feels himself surrounded by enemies, but don’t wait for a happy denouement in his case. Prospero acted rightly for the good of his sweetly innocent daughter Miranda, whereas Ivanka is a co-conspirator.

Two shows at the Globe displayed the sort of trendy, “transgressive” staging that has offended purists and gotten artistic director Emma Rice fired. Her “Romeo and Juliet” featured Clockwork Orange gang violence between Montague and Capulet droogs and two sulky teen leads who lacked only selfie sticks to be thoroughly up-to-date. Despite these distractions, one could hardly help escape the feeling that the warring factions resembled Democrats and Republicans whose inability to compromise may prove fatal to the body politic.

“Twelfth Night” already features a 17th century cross-dressing heroine, but it was further “enhanced” by the addition of a large, bearded male who performs under the name ‘Le Gateau Chocolate.’ He flounced around in a Donna Summers sequined diva dress belting out disco-era tunes as Feste. Also adding diversity was a petite female actress playing Malvolio as Jerry Lewis in “The Errand Boy.” In short, a timely reminder, perhaps, that just because you can do something, it isn’t necessarily a good idea. And refusing to be politically correct can go dramatically wrong.

The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford is mounting all four of Shakespeare’s Roman plays, and we got to see two, both of which bought us closer to the spirit of the age of Trump. In the first, “Antony and Cleopatra,” an over-reacher ditches his wife for a conniving exotic, but isn’t up to the challenge of dealing with the power of the establishment in the person of Octavian. Or, in Trump’s case, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, the intelligence community and the media. What Trump and Bannon might call “the deep state,” Rome called “The Empire.”

Closest of all to our debased time was “Titus Andronicus,” generally considered a contender for the worst play Shakespeare ever wrote. It is a very early effort aping the vogue for bloody revenge tragedy, but here it is given a stunningly effective reading which in a few modernizing touches seemed to nod in the direction of Trump, or perhaps Europe’s own populist demagogues.

Titus is a weary, battle-scarred general who has served nobly and is given a chance to become the emperor, but when he hesitates it is taken by an upstart striver complete with TV camera crews and a Sean Spicer-like communications director. He comes equipped with a Machiavellian supporter (Bannon) and an empress captured from a barbarian tribe (Ivana-Melania). They begin a bloody reign of terror, chopping political enemies into messes.

Titus (the Democrats?) appears to go mad with grief, but eventually manages to take his vengeance by catering a peace banquet at which he serves the children of the empress (Don Jr. And Eric) in a ragu.

This being drama, the endings may be grim or cheerful, but they are tidy and conclusive. Our own true life Senecan tragedy is only in its first Act, but the outcome is unlikely to be neat or order to be restored. This is another reason Shakespeare’s artistry is preferable to Trump’s bumbling reality. That and the language in which the drama is presented — powerfully poetic vs. puerile. And that’s how I spent my summer vacation.