A SHORT MEMOIR
 
back to main WRITINGS page PROLOGUE, SCENE 1 William Charles Macready (1793-1873) was an English actor whose favorite role (or should I spell that favourite?) was Macbeth though, according to his contemporaries, it was not his best. He studied law at Rugby and intended a profession as a barrister but, just before taking the bar, he encountered financial difficulties and instead, pursued a career as an actor and theater owner, just like his father. He actually disliked the profession but, being a determined sort with visions of greatness, decided upon a mission to raise the social status of the actor and elevate theater art in general. To a degree, he accomplished his goals: he was the first to reject bastardized versions of Shakespeare and revert to the originals, and he was the first to introduce full, appropriate scenery and historically accurate costuming. He was also the first to demand full rehearsals with the goal in mind of having the entire production flow as a seamless whole – prior to this, actors would learn their lines on their own, never rehearse together, and when on stage would declaim to the audience rather than act with each other. All of this led to the creation of the role of the stage manager, which later led to the creation of the role of the director. (I’ll let all you actors decide if this was a good thing or not.) Macready was a taskmaster and perfectionist. To the displeasure of many of his fellow actors, he would drill endlessly every nuance of a performance, all the way down to the proper bend of finger. His own acting style was cerebral and intense, and he was considered to be the second greatest actor of his era; Edmund Kean, by most contemporary accounts, being the greatest. back to main WRITINGS page back to SITE MAP back to SITE MAP A BUILDING, TWO ACTORS, AND A RIOT by DWIGHT BERNARD MIKKELSEN copyright © 2000 NotesLinger Arts PROLOGUE, SCENE 2 Edwin Forrest (1806-1872) was a self-taught American actor whose only similarity to Macready was the fact that he worked exhaustively on his craft, albeit in very, very different ways. In fact, it wouldn’t be too inaccurate to say that, all things considered, the two men were complete opposites. Forrest was quite handsome and through a strict regimen of diet and exercise, he built for himself an imposing physique. His acting style was physical rather than cerebral, he preferred the heroic good-guy roles, and almost never played a villain. (Sort of like John Wayne.) In fact, he is credited with starting the tradition of ruggedly built, handsome and heroic leading men. Many, one of whom was Walt Whitman, criticized his ranting and stormily declaiming ways, and drama critic William Winter of the New York Tribune once described him as “a vast animal, bewildered by a grain of genius.” (Ah critic! To what extremes wilt thou go to harvest a grain of wit!) Forrest was fiercely patriotic and quite eager to tell everyone (loudly, of course) the superiority of the American Way: humble beginnings, hard work, unbridled success. In other words, he abhorred all aristocratic manner, especially British. His fans, and there were legions of them, were primarily working class folk, and he was their champion. PROLOGUE, SCENE 3 Astor Place Opera House opened for business in 1847 with the expectation that its graceful design and luxurious appointments would be the perfect venue for the finest in theatrical art. It sat, splendidly, on the corner of Broadway and The Bowery in New York City. At the time, Broadway was lined with very large homes of the wealthy, while The Bowery was, well, The Bowery: boarding houses and saloons. The crème de la crème policies of Astor Place – for one thing the dress code included white kid gloves and white silk tie – irked some of the egalitarian-minded citizens of The Bowery, many of whom, nevertheless, were happy to sit next to their wealthy neighbors for an evening of Shakespeare. So, for the first year-and-a-half of its operation, Astor Place enjoyed a healthy business. ACT I, SCENE 1 In 1836, at the age of 20, Edwin Forrest traveled to England, where he worked and understudied with Edmund Kean. (Remember: Kean was the only English actor more highly regarded than Macready.) Later that year, in New York City, Forrest made his first leading role appearance as Othello and was an immediate success. He returned to England in 1845, this time heralded as The Great American Shakespearean Actor. Well, it didn’t go well; simply put, he got bad reviews. A lot of them. (Now that’s something we can all relate to!) For some reason, and it seems no one knows how or why, he got it into his head that Macready was behind it all. Not one to back down, he traveled to Edinburgh and attended a performance of Hamlet, during which he actually hissed (you can imagine how loudly) Macready. This outraged the British Press. (And Macready as well, I suppose.) When interviewed, Forrest defended his questionable behavior, saying that it was the audience’s right and, more so, their responsibility, to give an actor a sort of “on-the-spot critique.” The British Press and public were not convinced, and any hopes he had of success in England were gone. Forrest came home carrying a grudge bigger than his biceps, and when his fans heard of his reception in England, his celebrity status became married to that of martyr. As you can probably guess, this really helped his career: now he could do no wrong, he could make no misstep, he could not rant too loudly nor flex too boldly; except for some of the critics, of course. Every performance he gave was to overflowing, adoring crowds and he began to make the unheard-of sum of $2000 a week. (Remember: this was in the 1840s.) Forrest was King and he ruled America. (Ah, if only the story ended here!) ACT I, SCENE 2 Macready had always wanted to live in the United States after his retirement, so in 1848, he launched his third tour of the States – the first two, in 1826 and 1843, were very successful – with the hope of finding a suitable place to do so. He arrived full of enthusiasm and anticipation of success, but was met with a cold shoulder from the press and rumors of protest from Forrest supporters. One of Macready’s first appearances was at Astor Place in the fall of 1848. Despite the dire predictions, everything went smoothly, the press warmed up to him, and everyone was happy. Except Forrest. He was still nursing that grudge (and those biceps), and he embarked upon an elaborate course of retribution. What he did was this: whenever Macready performed, Forrest would stage his own production of the same play, in the same city, on the same night. Further, he personally undertook a publicity campaign of announcing these opposing performances by writing inflammatory anti-Macready letters to the local newspapers. (You must admit, he had a big set of – how shall I put this delicately? – gonads.) Soon, Forrest fans, following the example he had set in Edinburgh, began attending Macready’s productions hoping to unsettle him with their loud, coarse, on-the-spot critiques. As the double tour crossed the United States, this heckling became, in a way, the fashionable thing to do, and Macready could never enjoy a peaceful night of Shakespeare. Nevertheless, he remained undaunted and aloof from it all: he had always felt Americans to be “rather boorish” anyway – I can just hear him say that: heavy, drawn-out British accent with nose in air – and I guess this behavior helped to prove him right, at least in his mind. Besides, he was getting better reviews than Forrest. In the spring of 1849, Macready and Forrest arrived back in New York City. ACT II, SCENE 1 On 7 May 1849, Macready appeared for a second run at Astor Place in the role of Macbeth, while Forrest’s production took place at the Broadway Theatre, just a few blocks away. There was even a third production of Macbeth that night: Thomas Hamblin decided to get into the act (sorry, overused pun) and staged his own production at The Bowery Theatre, also only a few blocks away. These were the three leading theaters of New York City, but on that night, Astor Place itself was the center stage of theatrics because inside, the Forrest supporters were in fine form. In his diary, Macready wrote: Copper cents were thrown, some struck me, four of five eggs, a great many apples, nearly – if not quite – a peck of potatoes, lemons, pieces of wood, a bottle of asafoetida [a gum resin] which splashed my own dress, smelling, of course, most horribly. Amid the third act, four wooden chairs were thrown from the corner of the balcony, one of them shattering at Macready’s feet. (Good heavens!) Wisely, he stopped his performance, pointed to the splinters around him, bowed, and left the stage. This was big news, and the papers and rabble-rousers were full of it. William Niblo and James H. Hackett, the Astor Place managers, wrote and circulated a petition urging all connoisseurs of fine art not to back down from those Forrest ruffians. Many leading citizens signed it, including Washington Irving, Herman Melville and Mayor Caleb S. Woodhull, who had been in office only a week (poor soul). Niblo and Hackett sold and gave away many more tickets than they had seats to fill, in the hopes of having a 100% Macready crowd; but as a counter move, the politician Captain Isaiah Rynder, later of Tammany Hall fame, bought a number of tickets and gave them to Forrest supporters. Niblo and Hackett then covered all the windows with one-and-a-half inch wooden planks and demanded protection from Mayor Woodhull, who promised the presence of about 250 policemen. In the 1840s, the police were unarmed, so Mayor Woodhull placed the National Guard on alert. (Is this incredible or what?!) With all this in place, Macready was convinced he would be safe, and agreed to another performance. ACT II, SCENE 2 On 10 May 1849 at 8:00pm, the curtains rose on Macready’s Macbeth; the Forrest minority booed loudly, the Macready majority applauded resoundingly. However, the real drama was unfolding outside: Astor Place was surrounded by 10,000-15,000 (yes, ten to fifteen thousand!) ardent Forrest supporters. However, only about 200 of them (reports say they were mostly teenaged boys) were active – quite forceful, actually – with their protest. They began by throwing stones at the doors and windows of Astor Place and, incredibly, at some of the 250 policemen. The police issued a warning to stop; they ignored it and, instead, went to a nearby construction site, armed themselves with pieces of brick and pavement, and continued their assault. After they ignored another warning, the police called in two divisions of the National Guard’s 7th Regiment, who lined up across the street from Astor Place. By now, the Forrest supporters had shattered the wooden planks over the windows and were pelting the audience inside, along with the policemen, and, believe it or not, the 7th Regiment – who were armed with guns, mind you. The soldiers fired a warning volley over the crowd, but this made them think they were firing blanks, so they continued their stone and brickbat barrage. The soldiers fired a second volley at ground level, but the onslaught continued unabated. They then fired a third, and last, volley directly into the crowd. When it was all over, there were 23 people dead, and over 100 wounded. Predating the Civil War by 11 years, this was the first time in US history that American troops had fired upon and killed fellow Americans. The crooked fingers of blame pointed everywhere: at Macready for starting the whole thing in England; at Forrest for fomenting hatred of Macready; at the papers for festering a petty feud between two actors; at Niblo, Hackett, and the petitioners for insisting on another performance; at Mayor Woodhull for calling in armed troops; and on and on and on. The blame-finding, as you might expect, accomplished nothing beneficial, nor did it assuage a city and country in shock and grief over more deaths than the Battle of New Orleans and the Boston Massacre combined. EPILOGUE, SCENE 1 Macready managed to slip out of Astor Place in disguise. He stayed at a friend’s house that night, and the next morning, in a closed carriage, traveled to New Rochelle where he boarded a train for Boston. A few days later, he began his voyage back to England, feeling he would never be fully accepted by the British aristocracy – he never was – and could never fulfill his dream of retiring in the United States. His last performance was less than two years later in the role of Macbeth. EPILOGUE, SCENE 2 Forrest’s career slid precipitously after the Astor Place Riot, though he still had some fans in The Bowery and a few other spots in the US. In 1851, he sued his wife, the actress Catherine Sinclair, for divorce on the grounds of adultery. He lost the case – lack of evidence – but doggedly appealed the decision for the next 18 years. This suit ruined what little remained of his reputation, and in 1872 he died, alone, in his huge Philadelphia mansion. He bequeathed most of his fortune to build a retirement home for actors. EPILOGUE, SCENE 3 Astor Place also suffered greatly from the riot. Niblo and Hackett, and the managers who succeeded them, tried everything from minstrel and magic shows to opera, but could never make ends meet. In 1854 it was turned into a lecture hall and in 1855, when it became the home to the Mercantile Library of New York, its name was changed to Clinton Hall. In 1890, the original building was razed and replaced with a new 11-story Clinton Hall. In 1904 a subway station was built next to and under it, and today, the only physical reminder of the original Astor Place Opera House is the Astor Place Subway Station, on one side of a triangle known as East 8th, Lafayette and Astor Place. After the Mercantile Library moved in 1932, Clinton Hall was the home of various businesses and sundry activities until 1995, when it was converted to condominiums.