Criminal - The Hiss

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

As the famous English actor William Macready was preparing to go on stage in New York, over 300 police officers were placed in and around the theater. “But the head of the police said, ‘I don't know that that's going to be enough people.’” Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, members-only merch, and more. Learn more and sign up here. Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey

involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. One night in early May 1849, the English actor William Charles MacReady was in New York preparing to go on stage.

It was opening night, and MacReady was playing the leading role in Shakespeare's Macbeth. He was famous for it. William Charles McCready was known as the eminent tragedian. He was considered to be the greatest actor in England. Carl Coppola is a professor in the theater program at American University. He actually created something that came to be known as the MacReady Pause, where he would put a break in the middle of a line in order to show that his character was thinking. MacReady was 56 and had been a star for decades. He had toured America several times, but this was his farewell tour.

He was planning to retire. He would give his last performances in New York at a new theater, the Astor Place Opera House, which had only been open for about two years. Now this was a theater intended for what was referred to as the upper tens, or the upper 10,000, kind of the 10,000 most wealthy and powerful people in New York society, similar to how we would today talk about the one percenters. The theater had rules that other theaters did not. The dress code included gloves and, quote, freshly shaven faces. Unaccompanied women were not welcome.

This was an attempt to keep out sex workers. And the tickets were more expensive than at other theaters. There was a balcony in this theater that seated about 500 that had a lower or regular admission price. But the entrance was entirely separate so that the people who sat in that balcony had no opportunity for physical interaction with the upper class that inhabited most of the rest of the theater. This was intended

to be a refuge from kind of the rougher, coarser theatrical experiences. McCready was expecting a good turnout that night. His hairdresser told him that there was a large crowd outside the theater. The curtain bell rang, and he walked onto the stage to loud applause and bowed several times. But then he noticed something was wrong. Mixed in with the applause, he heard groans and hisses coming from the audience. And then a rotten egg landed by his feet. They began throwing things onto the balcony.

They bring projectiles, they toss food, foul-smelling liquids. Someone on the balcony had rolled out a banner. It read, You've been proved a liar. And then someone shouted, Three cheers for Edwin Forrest was an American actor, who was also playing Macbeth that night at another theater in town. William McCready had tried to reason with the crowd, and then he just decided to start the play,

even though the audience could barely hear him say his lines. And eventually, they actually tear up the seats and throw the seats onto the stage. A young patrolman who was present tried to stop the seat throwers, but was wrestled to the ground. One seat landed two feet from McCready. He ignored it and continued his performance. But when another seat landed in the orchestra, the musicians fled the theater and the curtain came down. McCready got out of the theater with

a group of friends and made it back to the New York hotel where he was staying. I was in best spirits, McCready wrote, and we talked over what was to be done. But later, when he was alone in his room, he started to feel differently. And McCready is absolutely ready to leave town. The next day, he booked a ticket back to England. But 47 prominent New York citizens,

which include the writers Herman Melville and Washington Irving, signed a petition. They wanted William McCready to stay in New York and continue his performances and promised him that order would be restored the next time he went on stage. The new mayor of New York, who had just been sworn in, was going to help. So the mayor, Caleb Woodhull, meets with the heads of law enforcement

and the managers of the Astor Place Opera House, who absolutely refused to cancel the performance. So the mayor says that the police will help keep the peace. The mayor and the police started preparing for McCready's next performance of Macbeth at the Astor Place Opera House. 200 police are going to be stationed inside the theater, and another 125 police officers will be outside the theater

in order to help get rid of any tensions that are happening out there. But the head of the police says, I don't know that that's going to be enough people. And so the mayor then calls the National Guard militia and puts them on call and says, OK, they'll hang out in Washington Square Park, 300 of them. And if they are needed, then they will march over. With more than 600 officers, including over a third of New York's police force standing by, William McCready applied his stage makeup and prepared to play Macbeth

again. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back. one series worth your attention, and they call these Series Essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Subtle results, still you, but with fewer lines.

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and I wanted to go see a play, what were my options? You would have an option of going to a less expensive theater that is going to be more down in the Bowery. You're going to be seated next to people who are passionately engaged, vocally engaged, talking the elite or to the kind of the emerging middle class, you're going to be in a much more controlled environment. It's going to feel a little bit more subdued. Popular audiences, working class audiences of this time period, viewed themselves as participants in the theatrical experience. And so if they loved something, they would cheer for it. They would stamp and cheer and clap their hands. Sometimes they would stop the show and make somebody do a part that they liked over again. But on the other

side, if they didn't like something, then they would make their opinion known. And so they would boo, they would hiss, which was a very popular way of showing disapproval in the theater. And if there was an actor on stage who they saw as problematic, they would be more inclined to put them in their place to exert their power and control over the theatrical experience. But Karl Coppola says working class and upper class theaters had one thing in common, Shakespeare. Shakespeare was enormously popular. I think many Americans saw Shakespeare as sort of their adopted son. They felt that he, as a playwright, spoke to them. And this was true across the country, even out west.

The two books that most households had in them were the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. I think that probably lower classes and upper classes had a different experience. They may have appreciated different things about Shakespeare as a playwright, but his popularity everywhere was absolutely powerful. There weren't many successful American plays. They were all British.

And so were all the best and most famous actors, like William McCready. But then Edwin Forrest entered the stage in the 1820s. He was kind of a self-made man. He was born in kind of an urban, working-class Philadelphia neighborhood. His father was a Scotch immigrant. His mother was a second-generation German. His father was a Scotch immigrant. His mother was a second-generation German. His father was a street peddler. Growing up, Edwin Forrest was a sickly child and, quote,

easily given to crying. Until one day, when Edwin Forrest said he decided to change that. And so he took on an exercise regimen to build up his body. So he becomes great in both his career and in his physicality through a sheer force of will. At least that's the narrative that he liked to tell and that the people who supported him, that narrative that they liked to encourage.

Forrest wrote, I made myself what I am, a Hercules. He had a body and a voice that were larger than life. If you read the critical reviews of Forrest, especially early on in his career, they all talked about the size of his biceps and his calf muscles. He was a huge man, very muscular, and he played roles where he got an opportunity to show off that physicality. And so while he was capable of a wide range of emotional expression, he was most known for this larger-than-life

presence. And he was, arguably, the first great American actor. When Edwin Forrest was 13, his father had died. And so he immediately had to start helping to support his family. He was initially an apprentice to a printer, but actually by the age of 14, he was performing. Edwin Forrest went to New Orleans, where he became a popular actor. But his career in the city ended when he fell in love with the same woman as his theater manager and challenged him to a duel.

And then, 20-year-old Edwin Forrest had his big breakthrough. He was hired to play Othello in New York. People loved him immediately. While initially, I think all audience members sort of responded to him, the further he went along in his career, the more he tended to play to those working-class audiences because they particularly loved him. They saw him as a representative of sort of who they wanted to be.

He was that ideal, someone who had been born like them, but through his will and his hard work had made himself great and powerful. Off stage, Edwin Forrest was known to wear a plain black coat and a, quote, carelessly tied necktie. He started a competition to promote American playwriting. He cast himself in the winning plays, which tended to have a theme. He was a common man who fought against the tyranny of an evil aristocracy, and he fought to raise up and free kind of the working class people around him. They all allowed him to play

the role that he had cast himself in as kind of this great American hero. One biographer of Forrest wrote, Forrest proved to the United States that genius was as powerful here as on the other side of the Atlantic. Despite his success, Edwin Forrest went through periods of deep depression. He once wrote to his mother from New York that he felt haunted. And then, Forrest decided to go to England. He wanted to prove that he could compete with the best actors in the world. That's when he met the English actor, William Charles MacReady. William Charles MacReady was 13 years older than Edwin Forrest and had been born in London. He was actually born into a theatrical family,

though he had no interest in being part of the theater. He had intended to go to Oxford, but his father, who was a theater manager, was in financial trouble, so he couldn't afford college and was forced to kind of join the family profession. When William McCready was 15, his father was arrested because of his debt.

William cried as he watched his father being walked to prison. His mother had died five years earlier, and William was now in charge of the family's struggling theater company. He started playing leading roles. He became a successful actor in London. When Edwin Forrest arrived in London, McCready had already seen him perform, and he wrote that Forrest was good, but also that he'd misunderstood parts of Shakespeare's text

and clearly only received, quote, the commonest education. McCready didn't see Forrest as competition because Karl Coppola says their acting styles were very different. What they were both most known for, probably, was Shakespeare. They played them in very different ways, but exactly the same roles. There were actually two

somewhat competing acting styles that were going on at that same time. One was referred to as kind of a classical style, which was based kind of upon elocution, beautiful speech, a very intellectual interpretation. And then there was kind of a more romantic style that was a very intelligent actor who studied his roles and understood the characters, he was also one who gave a very passionate performance. Some people thought Forrest's lack of formal training was an advantage.

Someone called his acting natural and impulsive because, quote, he was not so well trained as his English rivals in what may be termed a false refinement. Edwin Forrest didn't like society's elites and presented himself as a kind of underdog. Karl Coppola writes that Forrest's dislike of high society partially came from his own insecurities. William McReady wrote in his diary that he liked Forrest. He wanted to be friends. Unlike some other British intellectuals, MacReady was interested in America. He hated the British monarchy and the aristocracy.

He invited Forrest to come over to his house. Edwin Forrest wrote in a letter, MacCready has behaved in the handsomest manner to me, showing the native kindness of his heart. He hosted him in the Garrick Club, which was sort of this theatrical, artistic club, and also introduced him to a family called the Sinclairs, whose daughter he married while he was in England,

married her in 1837 before he returned. They were sort of the great American actor and the great British actor. They had much in common. Also, neither one of them had a lot of friends within the world of theater. They didn't really like theater people. They were successful in theater, but they didn't really like that world, and they lived outside of it. Both tended to be very private men and rather quiet when not on stage. Someone wrote that other actors found MacReady, quote, arrogant and unsociable. He kept a detailed journal, and in it he was self-critical and describes being uncomfortable in social settings. He also wrote a lot about social status.

He was simultaneously a snob and terrified of what people thought of him, especially people in the elite social circles he interacted with as he got more famous. Years later, he went to America to perform. The day he arrived, Edwin Forrest showed up at his hotel. I was very glad to see him, McCready wrote. Forrest visited again the next day and invited McCready over for dinner. They caught up. Since the two men had last seen each other, they had both lost someone.

McCready had lost his three-year-old daughter, and Forrest had lost four children who died at birth or soon after. And then MacReady started his tour of American cities. And at this point, Forrest begins following MacReady from city to city. And when MacReady performs a specific play and role, Forrest plays the exact same play and role in a theater that is oftentimes right across the street. And so Forrest is encouraging a competition, a comparison between the two of them. Forrest did this as a way to kind of reinvigorate his career and to boost his own ticket sales, and so he saw that as a great opportunity. Historian Nigel Cliff writes in his book, The Shakespeare Riots, that Forrest most likely

saw the whole thing as a, quote, cheerful rivalry between equals. But MacReady didn't see it that way. MacReady was deeply offended by that action. He saw it as ungentlemanly. And so MacReady, he remained outwardly cordial. But privately, he was pretty angry. And it began to impact how he viewed Forrest. McCready tried to give Forrest the benefit of the doubt. He wrote that the whole thing probably just came down to theater managers wanting publicity.

He wrote to his sister, I do not concern myself at all about it. But he also wrote that he didn't mind comparisons between himself and Forrest, because Forrest was not, quote, estimated highly by the leading people. The newspapers got involved too. Newspapers are always trying to sell newspapers. And so from the very beginning, papers really start capitalizing on that sense of competition that is growing between their native sun forest and the British MacReady. And the paper's opinions are largely divided by their readership. So working class papers are championing forest and denigrating MacReady.

And the exact opposite is happening with papers that are appealing to more of an upper-class audience. When William McCready returned to England, Edwin Forrest decided to follow him. We'll be right back. Thank you. it for, what tools are right for you, and what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for. And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Esther Perel, psychotherapist and host of the podcast, Where Should We Begin, which delves into the multiple layers of relationships, mostly romantic.

But in this special series, I focus on our relationships with our colleagues, business partners, and managers. Listen in as I talk to co-workers facing their own challenges with one another and get the real work done. Tune into Housework, a special series from Where Should We Begin, sponsored by Klaviyo. In 1845, Edwin Forrest arrived in London and started giving performances. He'd been well-received by audiences and critics in England on his first trip there almost 10 years ago. But this time, something was different. London is largely unimpressed with him because they recognize Forrest's acting hasn't

really changed since the last time he was there, a decade prior. And they actually laugh at his performance of Macbeth and his performance of Othello. Forrest claims that his performance of Othello was greeted with a shower of hisses. And he saw that as a systematic plan arranged in advance by MacReady. The American actor Charlotte Cushman wrote to her mother, Forrest has failed most dreadfully. In Macbeth, they shouted with laughter. Forrest had never had an experience like this before. He didn't believe that the bad reception

was just because of his performance. He thought there had to be another reason. And to him, the best explanation was that MacReady had turned his powerful friends against him. And then, Forrest decided to go see MacReady perform Hamlet in Scotland. MacReady is famous for playing Hamlet, and Hamlet, within the play, pretends to be crazy. And so MacReady did this bit of stage business where he pulled out a handkerchief and he kind of waved it and danced around and went and sat down across the stage. Well, at this performance in Scotland, someone stood up and

hissed that moment. And it was Forrest. Edward Forrest stood and hissed. All of the newspapers in England and then within a day or two, all of the newspapers in America were talking about this hiss. Now, hissing in working class theaters was still somewhat common, though it was by the time we reached the later 1840s, it was much less common and was largely unheard of in theaters that were not catering to working class. That's both true in the United States as well as in Britain. At first, McCready didn't believe that it was Forrest who had hissed at him. But then several people said they'd seen him do it. One person was quoted saying,

There was but one hiss and one hisser. Forrest was the hisser. And eventually, Forrest published something in one of the newspapers. Forrest comes out and he says, Yes, I did this. It is a proper way to show disapproval of something on stage. And I was just taking my rights as an audience member. Edwin Forrest wrote, Mr. McCready introduced a fancy dance into his performance of

Hamlet, which I hissed, for I thought it a desecration of the scene. McCready refused to engage Forrest publicly, kind of taking the high road, and then Forrest eventually leaves London and heads back to the United States. But in his diary, McCready called Edwin Forrest a, quote, low-minded ruffian. I mean, Forrest must have known this would cause a scandal. I think almost certainly. Forrest, I think on some level, believed that all publicity is good publicity. He was someone who liked being talked about. He wanted his name in the paper because that brought people into the theater to see him. I think both Forrest and McCready also were quite insecure and quite jealous of the other. I think Forrest probably really did believe that MacReady was working against him,

was trying to poison London audiences and critics against him. But yeah, I think Forrest was a very smart man, and he definitely knew what he was doing. But he also tended to act on his emotions, both on and off stage. Carl Coppola says the response in American newspapers was divided along class lines. Working class audiences approved of the hiss. When Forrest returns, he kind of returns as kind of this conquering hero. And there's like this parade that welcomes him

when he gets off the boat. They're applauding him for standing up for America and America's rights. So Forrest knew what he was doing, and his audience loved it. But it was yet another thing that proved to more upper-class audiences and the readership of those newspapers that Forrest was an embarrassment to them. He was representing America, but in a way that showed America as uncouth and rough and coarse, incapable of self-control. Two years later, William McCready, now in his mid-50s,

decided it was time to retire. But first, he would do one final farewell tour of America. MacReady's close friend, Charles Dickens, had been nervous about him going. He worried something bad would happen to him there. But MacReady insisted. He got on the boat to America one last time. The main reason why any of the British actors went to America was because of the opportunity to make a tremendous amount of money.

But MacReady actually really loved America. Well, he didn't love Forrest. He actually was thinking about retiring in America, which he referred to as dear Yankee land. And even at this point, he was thinking, oh, I could see myself retiring there. He loved the ideals that America was founded on, that sense of freedom. He was a big fan of George Washington. So I think he had still hope that he could salvage that situation, that he could do one last trip before he retired and make the last of his fortune and maybe stay there.

William McCready arrived in Philadelphia, Forrest's hometown, and he saw Edwin Forrest walking down the street. McCready looked the other way. But when McCready got on stage in Philadelphia, parts of the audience hissed and jeered at him. From the stage, he tried to explain that he hadn't done anything wrong, and that he was the one who had been hissed. And then, at a show in Cincinnati, someone threw half a dead

sheep at him from the gallery. I think there was a heightened sense of expectation as soon as he arrived. And MacReady, as he began performing around the United States, Forrest again followed him from town to town, playing the same roles in the same plays at a theater in the same town. And the press on both sides continued to escalate the tension, feeding on prejudices of class and of nationality. So eventually, Forrest and MacReady have kind of these dueling curtain speeches.

They speak to their audiences after performances. Forrest to kind of damn MacReady and of this being this part of this vast conspiracy. McCready trying to stay sort of above that fray, saying that he appreciates the audience that he has, that he is not guilty in any way of what he's been charged with. And then William McCready traveled to New York to play Macbeth. After his opening night was cut short by audiences tearing up the theater and throwing seats, someone asked Edwin Forrest what he thought of the whole thing.

Two wrongs don't make a right, he said. But he also said, let the people do as they please. As McCready prepared to go on stage again, with hundreds of law enforcement officers stationed in and around the theater, the city was covered in posters. They read, Working men, shall Americans or English rule in this city? It was signed by the American Committee.

Which was a nativist society that was anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, and especially anti-Irish, who pledged America for Americans. Historian Nigel Cliff writes that as more and more immigrants arrived in New York, wages went down, which fed anti-immigrant ideas. At the same time, wealthy New Yorkers were getting richer.

Forrest and McCready are figureheads. They represent America and England, but they also represent the working class and the elites. And there's a lot of anger and resentment, and this theatrical rivalry provides kind of the perfect catalyst for this tension. Nativist politicians who supported Forrest had bought large numbers of tickets for MacReady's performances in New York and handed them out to people, most of them members of New York's gangs. By 7 o'clock that night, the streets near the theater were packed with people, mostly white, American, and Irish working-class men. Carl Coppola says that while nativist Americans were anti-Irish, the two groups were united in their dislike of the English,

and a few of them had a plan. Throw gunpowder into the theater's large gas chandelier to make it blow up. In and outside the theater, hundreds of police officers were stationed. The theater's lower windows had been boarded up with wooden planks. When the doors opened, people rushed inside. But tickets sold to MacReady supporters had secretly been marked,

so the theater could try to throw out people who were there to support Forrest. McCready walked onto the stage with, he claimed, confidence and cheerfulness. As the performance begins, there are Forrest supporters in the theater. They try to disrupt the performance, but they are arrested and they're locked up in a basement room in the theater. And they attempt then to set fire to the building. So there is smoke that starts coming out of the building. Outside the theater, there is a mob of at least 10,000 people. Some newspaper reports said as many as 24,000, but at least 10,000. Now, some of these are people who came to protest,

but many of them are just people who are on their way home and they see a crowd and they are just more bystanders. Then, some of the people at the front of the crowd started throwing paving stones through the theater's windows and at the police. Groups of young men were throwing themselves at the entrance, and one of the doors burst open. The sheriff sounded an aid with an urgent request for the National Guard to come immediately.

But William McCready continued his performance. No one can actually hear the performance, but McCready apparently finishes the performance. I think he probably got through it as fast as he possibly could. And Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's shorter plays, and so he got through it. McCready came out for the curtain call and bowed towards the audience. And then he leaves the building in disguise.

The National Guard arrived and tried to control the crowd, who were still throwing stones. The National Guard marches in in between the crowd and the theater, and they try to subdue. They provide warnings to the crowd, which the crowd probably can't hear. They fired warning shots over the heads of the crowd. The bullets that were fired above the heads of the crowd. The bullets that were fired above the heads of the crowd, because of the nature of guns and bullets during that time period,

they then hit people in the back of the crowd. People who weren't actually protesting, who were there just as bystanders. A 34-year-old Wall Street broker was watching the scene with one hand in his pocket when he was killed by a gunshot. A 30-year-old Wall Street broker was watching the scene with one hand in his pocket when he was killed by a gunshot. A 30-year-old Irish housekeeper had been window shopping for shirts with her husband when she was shot in the knee. She died a few days later. A 9-year-old boy was shot through the thigh but survived. But then another order was given, and they did fire into the crowd. Twenty-two people were killed that night, and nine more died in the following days from injuries that they sustained that night.

It was the deadliest of a number of civil disturbances in New York City, which generally pitted immigrants and nativists against each other or together against the wealthy who controlled the city's police and the state militia. Carl Coppola says in some ways, the Astor Place riot changed American theater. I think over time, what happens as the 1800s progress is that the working class people are attending the theater less and less, and theater becomes a bit more controlled by the growing middle class, and where there's a greater sense of decorum and control that happens within the theater. People are expected to be polite. And I think that the riot is one of the things that really encouraged that change of direction for the future of theater.

After the Astor Place riot, William McCready went back to England and retired from the theater. McCready expressed regret for the loss of life, but ultimately didn't really talk very much about it. It certainly was a painful and a terrifying experience for him, and not one that he talked a great deal about, even within the privacy of his diary. What happened to Forrest? Forrest stops performing for a little bit, but his career

continues. But he also almost immediately goes into this very high profile divorce. He and his wife have this six week divorce trial in front of the New York Supreme Court, where they accuse each other of multiple infidelities. And it is kind of the trial of the century York Supreme Court, where they accuse each other of multiple infidelities. And it is kind of the trial of the century. It is covered in all of the papers, and Forrest loses, though he appeals, and for 16 years he appeals. But I think the combination of that riot and that high-profile divorce really tarnish his reputation. He blamed the mayor's office primarily. He basically said that, you know, Astor Place riot shouldn't have happened because the Astor Place Opera House should have shut down the performance and it never should have happened. But he certainly never took any sense of responsibility for it.

He considered himself to be the wronged party, and he stood by that kind of belligerently, defiantly, through the rest of his life and his career. 23 years after the Astor Place riot, Edwin Forrest died in his hometown of Philadelphia. He was 66. Four months later, William McCready died at 80. Almost all of McCready's obituaries pointed out

that he had outlived Forrest by several months. Check out our other show, This Is Love. In our next episode, we'll tell the story of Charlotte Cushman, an American actor who became famous for playing Shakespeare's Romeo, and who got to know both William Charles McCready and Edwin Forrest. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior

producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Thank you. is Acts of Manhood, The Performance of Masculinity on the American Stage, 1828 to 1865. We hope you'll join our new membership program, Criminal Plus.

Once you sign up, you can listen to criminal episodes without any ads, and you'll get bonus episodes with me and criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr, too. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com

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