September 10, 2020 • 49 mins
Don't let reality television and wrestling fool you -- celebrity rivalries are a tale as old as entertainment itself. In 1849, the rivalry between two Shakespearean actors culminated in a massive riot that would leave more than 20 people dead in the street. Listen in to learn more about the infamous Shakespeare riot... as well as the sociocultural tensions that actually drove the fray.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye.
(00:27):
Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
so much for tuning in. My writer Die and I
here have off off. Mike agreed. There is only there's
one and only one way to introduce today's episode, and
that's this Shakespeare Riots ryant. That's as far as we
(00:48):
got with the song. Right brow chair up on the stage,
the Shakespeare Riot Riot. This is not I don't know,
I got nothing, what is it? Well, so this is
let's see, um, it's over the bard. We wage no
nothing not good, not good. Well, we'll look at the
(01:09):
we'll look at the lyrics and spend some time or
maybe you can help us out with this. We're looking
for zoot Suit Riot written as Shakespeare Riot, and we'd
love to hear your take on the lyrics, uh anywhere
on the internet, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook page Ridiculous Historians.
Maybe we can come up with some of our own
(01:30):
off air. How will I write this parody song? You
may be asking yourself, Well, it's very simple. You'll learn
all you need in today's episode. Well, and the good
news is I've already set the bar remarkably low. With
my ham fisted attempt at this, but you know I
was really it was just right off the cuff. I
didn't even think about this bend you threw that. You
surprised me with this cherry pop and Daddy's ref So please,
(01:54):
ridiculous historians, do us a solid and make us proud
right right, this song and needs to exist. Weird Al
hasn't done it. Who else is going to? I don't
know if it could be you, but it's true. Today
we're talking about no joke riot, like you know, practically
burning things to the ground. I think there is an
attempt at arson at some point in this story, and
it's all around. It's like in that time of New
(02:16):
York City history, kind of like Gangs of New York era,
if I'm not mistaken with like the Bowery Boys and
all of that stuff. Actually that might be later. Forget
I said anything about Gangs of New York. But it
is sort of still that frontier kind of like you know,
mentality of like, you know, there's the very high salutin
old money types, which were pretty much British transplants who
(02:41):
still are quite rich, and then there's like the new
middle class, and then there's like the lower class and
a lot of that stuff. Those crowds come together in entertainment.
That's where the haves and the have nots kind of
meat Taylor as old as time, we see it throughout
history and America was it so much no own as
being like like a theater place. It was very much
(03:03):
a British thing. And obviously Shakespeare is the most famous
British you know, arguably now I think pretty much unquestionably
there was famous British playwright of all time. And this
was now starting to you know, show up in the States.
But there still wasn't like a famous British equivalent to
like the the great British actors, you know, And this
(03:26):
story is kind of about that American equivalent and the uh,
the the hufflepuff that's not the right word, the hubble
brew ha ha. That those uh that those clashing factions
uh created when you know, people were feeling like maybe
this uh, this gentleman was too low brow to tread
(03:48):
the boards right right, and this is uh, this is
where of course we point out, uh, the notable absence
of our super producer Casey Pegram, who is still so
upset by the historical event that he uh, he wasn't
able to make it to the recording. Today, we're with you, Casey, uh,
and you'll be you're joining us in spirit. But we
(04:11):
understand how how you're still still a little sore about
about the issue his very sensibilities of all that is good.
We're so shaken that he had to take a take
a sick day today. Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket,
that's the theater ticket. You're you're right, Noel, and I
love the way that you have set out the stage
for our story today. You see, one of the biggest
(04:35):
incidents of public outrage and pandemonium in the entire history
of the Big Apple was really a fight about theater. Uh.
And we're going to learn how a tremendously difficult feud
between two actors lead to widespread chaos. So let's introduce
(05:00):
were two principal actors for this story who are also
actors themselves. There's England's William McCready and from the US
there's Edwin Forrest. Now, both of these guys were already
big deals. They were professional actors. They were in their
glory days. They had each toward the other's country in
(05:20):
various productions, and they were known on both sides of
the pond. But McCready sort of represented that old school
idea of Shakespearean or British actors. Forrest was a young
gun in every sense of the word. He was thirteen
years younger than William and he also represented this sort
(05:44):
of this sort of new school of actors who came
from an American background. Yeah, that's right. It's like you
think of, oh, what's that Saturday Night Live sketch? Whereas
is it Mike Myers who does the whole acting that
that thing John John Lovett's acting. That's right, And yeah,
it's it's definitely like that that tradition, a very large
(06:08):
kind of you know, almost scenery chewing kind of attitude
of that kind of Shakespearean acting where it's all about
big performances because as we know, you know, stage acting
requires big performances. Otherwise, those uh, gestures and glances and
looks and and nuances that might be easier to to
see on a screen with zoomed in camera, you can't
(06:31):
do that on on on a on a stage when
you're maybe you know, hundred feet away and the chief
seats or or more even um so you really got
to kind of like sell it um. And that is
what McCready represented. The traditional style of Great Britain and
classical British theater. Forest, who was much younger, Um was.
(06:52):
He brought a different kind of bravado to the stage.
It's possible that I'm overstating the bigness of British acting
because it was possibly of to the more nuanced Um,
but it had a little bit more of an effect
quality to it, a little bit more of a daintiness
and delicate nature. And this Forest guy was all, you know,
piss and vinegar and bigness and machismo. And American audiences
(07:16):
flipped for this guy, first of all because he was
one of their own, you know, given those British conquerors
what for uh you know, in in in the theater,
theatrical sense um. But he had really started to develop
kind of a distinct cultural identity for American theater that
(07:36):
was different from that British school. And I would argue,
first off, I have rarely been a professional actor in
my life. I mainly did uh sketch comedy and a
couple of few serious pieces. But I would argue that
this difference exists in a form today very quickly. For instance,
(07:56):
imagine some of the most famous American actors, people like
al Pacino. That's always going to be seen as al
Pacino on camera, right, and it's less chameleon like. There's
something to be said, uh and and I'm not sure
how to freeze it. There's something to be said to
the idea that European actors are often lauded for their
(08:20):
ability to become subsumed in a role, while many US
actors are lauded for their ability to kind of always
be themselves. Hey, it's me Robert de Niro, Bobby de Niro.
I'm playing a French duke in this movie. But this
is still how I do you know? Or Keanu reeves
uh may science and the God's bless him. He seems
(08:43):
like such a great guy. But man, if you rewatch
Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, which I thoroughly enjoy. Uh that accent,
that accent is tough. I know what, the Boston sleeps exactly. Yeah.
But you know what, you never got cast in a
role like that ever again. And I would argue that
Kanu reeves as a secret weapon, a magic bullet when
(09:03):
used properly. And I think I saw an article not
to get too off topic, about how he is sort
of one of the most underappreciated actors in American cinema,
and that's largely because people just think he's a dummy
and he doesn't really know what he's doing. But yet,
why why is he so beloved? It's not just coincidence,
It's not just because he's cute. There's something to Kiana Reeves.
(09:25):
He brings a kindness and that sort of empathy to
his roles. Uh, And I think that really translates, and
that's why he's such a big deal. And I think
that all all of the actors we have mentioned thus far,
and many that we haven't mentioned thus far, are in
their own way, profoundly talented, you know. I I think
it's I think it's kind of lazy for people to
just keep opprobrium on an actor. There's there's usually going
(09:49):
to be a reason that they're in so many films, right,
professionals assessed their abilities and found them more than adequate,
So kudos to wall. It is tremendously difficult work to
be a working actor, and you live and die by
the fans, right, That's true for any entertainment. That's true
for uh K pop and groups like BTS, that's true
(10:14):
for sports teams and more. These actors each had their
own fan clubs, and they were like soccer hool again
level or football hool again level, opposed to each other.
The wealthy upper class anglophiles in England and in the US,
they were McCready people, the the uh the working class,
(10:39):
the folks who were like, yeah, I like theater. What
does that surprise you? Okay, like theater, I worked, you
know what? The ducks and I go see Macbeth. What's
wrong with that? This is America, baby, Those folks like Forest. Well,
if I'm not mistaken, then I mean this is also
pre what we might consider some of the more base,
lowbrow types forms of entertainment in the States, things like
(11:02):
cabaret or things like vaudeville, you know. Like so at
the time, the reason there was such a clash between
these two classes was because this was really the only
game in town. Was this kind of classical theater, you know, Like,
I don't know, I mean, I'm sure there were some
other things that were approaching what I'm talking about, but
it certainly wasn't that golden era, yet where there were
(11:22):
like a much more of a body type of crowd
that maybe the highbrows wouldn't go to. They were occupying
the same theaters, checking out the same uh, performances that
were largely classical works. Not classical all the time, but
things by Shakespeare, maybe even Greek theater or Rome, what
have you. So there was definitely this interesting opportunity for
culture clash to take place, and boy do we have
(11:43):
a good one coming. But real quick, let's just a
little further some up kind of they's individual actress style.
William Charles McCready was known for that kind of more
Faye effect kind of handkerchief wavings is how Smithsonian Magazine
refers to it um in his port trail of Hamlet,
and he was a beloved portrayer of Hamlet. That was
(12:03):
one of his most famous roles. Uh. Forest, on the
other hand, like we said, took it a little bit
more of a blunt instrument approach. Yeah, And Forrest was
more of the Shakespearean protagonist as action hero, you know
what I mean. This guy was here to kick ass
and spit quatrains. And I have no idea if that's correct.
(12:29):
But here's here's the thing. They also became symbols as
we've sort of been foreshadowing of anti English and pro
English sentiment. We have to remember this was like just
maybe two generations after the Revolutionary War. That means it
was still a hot topic. So even the word English
(12:53):
was considered to kind of a sideways dig against the
wealthy in the US and what we're seeing as their
British sympathies. Shakespeare, oddly enough escaped this anti English sentiment.
Americans loved Shakespeare, they loved the stories, they love the writing.
(13:16):
They just wanted no part of what they saw as
the foreign stage direction. They were like, yeah, forrest this guy,
this bust heads and take names approach to British protagonists,
and that's what we need, not this uptype formality. And
while that might seem weird, we have to remember this
was pre internet, this was pre telephone, pre television, so
(13:39):
traveling performers were often seen as representatives of their own countries,
whether they liked it or not. So when a lot
of people would see McReady, they would think, Okay, this
is what every single British person. It's like, how interesting
is that? Ben sort of goes to what I was
talking about earlier, that maybe it had to do it
just a lack of options. But you know, now we
(14:00):
think of Shakespeare is something that you learn in college,
and you know, we might occasionally get like a bas
learnman adaptation of one that's got like boobs and you know,
violence and and and chopping heads and things like that.
So there's definitely still a little bit of that populace
sentiment around Shakespeare, but much less so. There's an article
on the Santa Fe, New Mexicans website that kind of
tells the story of this rivalry that categorizes it like this.
(14:23):
Prospectors and trappers recited Shakespeare around campfires, reading from battered
volumes carried in their packs or cobbling together heartfelt pastichious
from memory. Um, really fascinating. This really was kind of
the people's He was the people's bard, you know, right, yeah,
voice of the people. And so let's let's dive into
(14:45):
how McReady and Forest became such uh, such bitter pills
toward one another. It all started years back. McReady had
toward the United States, and Forest more or less emulated him.
He performed the same roles that McReady was known for
(15:07):
at different theaters across the country, and the public love
this idea of dueling actors. There's almost like a w
W E vibe here because there was this transatlantic rivalry.
Supporting that one actor or another in a role became
kind of a statement of one's sentiments regarding the transatlantic
(15:32):
rivalry at large. And so when Forrest went to England,
the crowds came out, there were butts in the seats,
there were ground lanes in the ground lean area. And
when he came back to England later in the mid
eighteen forties for a second tour, you can read a
(15:52):
great article about this on thought Co, the crowds were sparse.
Did Forest blame his performance? Did he blame the source
material or did he blame the production team? No, he
blamed McReady. That's son of a fish. He said. I
was sabotaged. Yeah I was. I was sabotaged. And so
we physically showed up in a performance that McReady was
(16:16):
involved in and started heckling him from the audience like
this boom. You know it's funny. I read another article
about this, or I think I watched and I know
what it was. There's this guy I've been really enjoying
on on YouTube. Goes by the history Guy and he
does these kind of short little uh, you know, quick
blasts through like interesting little history stories. And we've we
(16:37):
referenced him a few times on the show. But he
talks about how these guys kind of knew each other,
they had at least crossed paths, and they were friendly
to a point. Uh. And the first thing, yeah, and
then things got nasty. But you gotta wonder, you know,
it's like these hip hop beefs we see today, you
gotta wonder if there's calculation behind them sometimes where it's
sort of like, hey, no, no press is bad press.
(16:58):
Maybe if we drum up some kind of leg rivalry,
it'll it'll, you know, it'll up our returns on both ends.
UM doesn't seem like that was the case here because
there was actual loss of money happening, because it was like, Okay,
you're gonna you're gonna cause me to not have as
many people come to the show. I'm gonna show up
and hiss from from the box seats. Uh, And that
(17:19):
really UM set things on a collision course for disaster.
And we know this is the case, uh, because Okay,
so the this is when the rivalry begins. So Forest
shows up in Edinburgh when mc ready is performing Hamlet,
(17:40):
as you guessed it Hamlet, and oddly enough, theater was
much more interactive at this level there is maybe considered
to be today because it wasn't uncommon for a spectator
to heckle, and mc ready may have gone on and
just take that and stride his bruised ego aside, but
(18:03):
he recognized that it was Forest. And then Forrest went
in and wrote a letter to the London Times where
he defended his behavior. He said it was quote is
salutary and wholesome corrective to the abuses of the stage.
The truth is Mr McGready thought fit to introduce a
(18:24):
fancy dance into his performance of Hamlet, which I thought,
and still think a desecration of the scene, and at
which I evinced that disapprobation. What is it? A fancy
dance like a little uh, like a little jig like
I got it? Who knows that that would be a first?
(18:47):
And then McCready, uh, you know, in in in, in
true dandy British fashion, made a very snippy entry in
his diary where he commented on the affairs such. I
do not think that's such an action as a parallel
in all theatrical history, the low minded ruffian perfect. I
(19:09):
think he's referring, he's referring to Forest. There is a
low that is them's fighting words. Low minded Ruffian in
those days might as well be you know, a serious
Ethan and Jeff and kind of slur. And notice how
that that plays into the British stereotypes of knuckle headed
residents of the US. And it's weird because in Europe
(19:34):
McReady is very well established. He has the infrastructure, he
has the pr they're on his side, and his supporters
worked assiduously to ensure that Forest is performances didn't get
a lot of coverage in the press, so he wasn't
getting the headlines and the ink that he wanted, and
this sabotaged his uh, his obsession one that should be
(19:57):
familiar to many actors in the audience today. Global fame
and then Forest in return made it difficult for Ready
to play in the States. There was a performance McReady
had in Cincinnati, and the patrons, the audience members, the
secret Forest fans intentionally went there to try and sabotage
(20:20):
the production. They threw half a dead sheep onto the stage,
and these guys kept like snipping each other back and
forth in the press. So to your point, Noll, I
don't know how sincere they. I think the two actors
were sincere. But I am sure there were promoters and
so on who were fanning the flames because they realized
it was good publicity and it's back and forth in
(20:43):
the press. These kind of little digs, uh, just went
on and on and on and really began to just
kind of deepen those resentments on both sides of the divide.
Like we said, the anglophile has you know, in the
MacCready camp and the more working class you know, um
football hooligan types, not to oversimplify um and the forester camp.
(21:07):
And it all was heading to a battleground situation, um
where things would ultimately kind of boil over in a
pretty remarkable fashion. We have our characters, we have our context.
(21:27):
Now let's look at our figurative and literal stage. The
theater at astor place is in a wealthy neighborhood Broadway
should be familiar to everybody else. It is within shouting
distance of the Bowery, which is working class. The Bowery
Theaters where Forrest made his stage debut, and it's where
(21:49):
neighborhood street gangs known as bhoys be Apostrophe h o
y s went to while out they would throw peanuts,
they would they would holler along with the works of Shakespeare,
or they would climb on stage and try to mess
with the actors. The Astor Place Theater was the polar
(22:10):
opposite velvet seats. You gotta show up with white gloves,
monocles not required, but encouraged totally. And uh, basically it
was considered scandalous if someone showed up to the Astor
Place Theater not in an expensive carriage. So of course
that's where McReady goes. That's right. And you know I
(22:31):
mentioned at the top of the show the idea of
kind of that that new Ish working class um, the
Bowery Boys and things like that. They were they were
there was a gang, but they also were just kind
of a group of you know, street tufts that kind
of hung around the Bowery neighborhood. So you definitely had
it wasn't very far from where the Astor Theater was,
(22:52):
so there was you know, it was easy for them
to kind of like get when that there that there
was going to be this event and decide they were
going to uh you know, not co opted exactly, but
a bit of a party crashing situation. So, um, when
McCready gets this kind of engagement at the Aster Place
Theater in eighteen forty nine and the Springs will be
(23:14):
his third tour of the United States, uh, it was
essentially fighting words, um, you know, as far as the
Bowery Boys and that kind of Echelona society were concerned.
So on May seventh, eighteen forty nine, McCready was about
to hit the stage as Macbeth in the in the
Scottish play, that's what they call it. And uh, this
(23:37):
that's when these working class New York folks who had
bought tickets started filing into the Astor Opera House, which
is which is the official name of the place. And
it was actually, if I'm not mistaken, they had previously
only done opera and then they started to kind of
diversify a little bit because I think they wanted to
I don't know, like broaden the reach, I guess, and
(23:59):
and make more money. Um that's just the way it looks,
um from my perspective. So it started to get a
little rough feeling, and you started to see, you know,
a lot of these uh folks that were more used
to the white glove and monocle uh situation. We started
to see this other contingent kind of filing in and
it sort of gave them a little bit of pause.
(24:22):
Uh McCready went on stage. I started to deliver the
first of his lines and was immediately cheered boot pissed
at uh. And there were things like three grounds for
the English bull dog, let's all for native talent. They
wouldn't have said it in an English accent. They were
(24:42):
in English at all. I don't know why I said that.
It was funny they could there. You go, let's assume
that's the case. Huzzah for the native talent exactly. I
love hazzah. Huzzah is universal. You don't have to be
British or American to use his uh um. And things
just got worse from their apparent only it got so
noisy that the performers had to kind of continue the
(25:05):
performance in pantomime because he couldn't even hear the dialogue.
And then things escalated from there in terms of like
things getting chucked on stage, right, Yeah, Yeah, I'm I'm
most My favorite part of this story is the same
crowd cheered when mc duff first enters the story. She's
(25:25):
as as you recall Shakespeare fans, he's the character who
goes on to kill Macbeth spoilers. So that's how profoundly
they hated McReady. And the stage wasn't just pelted with
uh playbills or peanuts. People had brought things to throw
at him, eggs, bottles, pennies, rotten fruit. Yes, that really
(25:47):
used to happen. People would throw rotten fruit at actors,
and eventually they had to end the performance before the
play itself was done. At the same time, across town, Forest,
by the way, is doing his own performance of Macbeth
to a packed house of his own supporters, and this
(26:08):
made mcgreedy livid in a very you know, buttoned up
British way. He said, I'm going to cancel my tour.
I'm leaving this golf of saking country full good. And
it took some of New York's most highly regarded elites
begging him for him to you know, reluctantly change his mind.
(26:30):
Uh the other word, like the society folks, the literary giants,
and so they said, Okay, we're gonna do another performance.
We're going to call it a premier. We're gonna do
it three days later. And that's where they messed up
because this, fellow ridiculous historians, gave the authorities time to prepare,
but it also gave the It also gave those mutual
(26:52):
fan clubs time to prepare. Unless we need to really
not uh bury the lead here. This was more than
just like drunken heckling. This, like we said, this represented
serious tensions between the upper and lower and middle classes.
Uh and also the pro British versus staunchly anti anything
(27:16):
foreign sentiments. So I mean, this was serious business. This
represented something very real, even if it was just kind
of like, you know, it seems a little frivolous talking
about it now, I was like, wow, it was just
like a freaking play. It's basically just like getting bad
of shape about like you know, a movie or something,
which not to say people don't do that that that,
but certainly not to this degree. Um. There was a
(27:37):
militia assembled, A three fifty person militia was assembled, and
it was stationed at Washington Square Park on the ready
right then, um, and they were kind of expecting that
there was going to be some trouble, and that was
assembled by the city's mayor, who was a Wig. That's
(27:58):
a holdover from British governing. Yeah. The Whig Party, which
is no longer active now, was pretty active in the
eighteen hundreds. They were an oppositional party. They rose to
oppose President Andrew Jackson. So they their main constituents, or
their their main components were former members of the Democratic Party,
(28:22):
the Anti Masonic Party, which is a good thing for
an episode later, and the National Republican Party got it.
So would they have been more pro British or more
pro you know, British sentiment or is this not even
something that is worth considering in this situation. They you know,
it's it's almost an episode of its own. They ultimately
(28:48):
self destructed over the question of whether or not slavery
should be expanded to the territories in the country at
the time. So there were a lot of what we
would call haves in the Whig Party. Okay, so this
would have largely this three fifty man militia. We could
probably consider them kind of in the MacCready camp. Oh yeah, oh,
(29:11):
they're there to there to oppose the unwashed masses and
their hooligan ring. Yeah. Oh, also, uh, Abraham Lincoln was
leader of the Whig Party in Illinois once upon a time,
So you know, I I don't want to paint with
two broad a brush there, but yes, the three man
(29:31):
strong militia was organized to stop any potential shenanigans on
the part of forest supporters. So we fast forward tine
the second performance still called a premier for marketing purposes.
That's right, that's right. And let's also point out we
(29:53):
may have glossed over this. This was essentially the rich
contingent saying, how da are you treat our beloved MacCready
in this way? You absolute trash human beings. We are
going to be completely tone deaf about what this few represents,
and we just think he deserves them all again because
(30:14):
you were so you know, uh, dastardly to him with
your rudeness and your pelting of eggs and all of that.
They probably should have left well enough alone, Ben, not
realizing that this was actually the match that could ignite
an actual powder k. I'm not an actual literal powder
keg a figurative powder k or an actual riot or
(30:35):
conflict in the streets. But they were more concerned about
coming off as as uh refined to this this gentleman
and making sure that he would return to regale them
with with with his uh you know, handkerchief waving performances
in future engagements. Yeah, that's the thing they were. There
was a lot of let us subjugate the lower class,
(30:57):
teach them a lesson kind of reasoning behind their activities.
I could just see, you know, I can see the
members of high society shaking their hands in the ceiling
of their chandelier and going the uncoutherie of it all
the year, uncouthie. Uh so, yeah, you're you're absolutely right.
Things got shady so quickly. Two officers from the police
(31:21):
force were inside the theater, seventy five more were outside,
but the crowd easily outnumbered them. We're talking about more
than ten thousand people, and people in the crowd learned
of an unethical trick. The McReady contingent had pulled an
advance of the play. You see, they intentionally oversold the
(31:41):
tickets for the show, and this gave the ushers the
opportunity to uh, as the Smithsonian Mental Flaws phrase it,
weed out the riff raff and still have a sold
out premier. So they did this, by the way, because
McReady's agents sold tickets that had a special identifying mark
(32:04):
that said to the ushers, these are the people we
actually want in the theater. So the four supporters who
managed to get in in the first place found themselves
cherry picked and arrested during the first act of the play,
and the crowd of McGready fans were loudly cheering as
they saw these people get dragged off, And then that's
(32:26):
when eventually the prisoners set their holding cell on fire.
One man yelling, I paid for ticket and they wouldn't
let me in because I hadn't kid gloves in a
white vest. Damn them. Kid gloves. Is that where that
expression comes round? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, go goat skin. Yeah,
I got it, kid. I always as soon handling things
(32:48):
with kid gloves meant like, like, you know, having to
deal with a small child. I was always give the
other one these gloves for children, Like I confused. That
makes perfect sense. Kid gloves, Marzi oats and dozy dots
and all that stuff. Kids isn't even in that rhyme.
What am I talking about? I just google it. It's
it's a it's a funny rhyme about types of goats
(33:11):
or something. Um. But yeah, it's true. People started throwing
bricks or as they referred to them in those days,
paving stones, um. And it was you know absolute bedlum.
Windows were being broken. Uh. The opera house really started
to look like that scene and lay miss, you know,
with a barricade in the middle of the street and
like you know, burning refuse piled up in and like
(33:34):
a weird pyramid and uh yeah, I mean it's absolutely
a scene, you know, like something out of out of
a war movie inside an opera house. So now the
opera house is starting to look like it is under siege,
(33:57):
like there's some sort of army invading. Police and the
state militia try to keep the crowds away from the theater.
One General William Hall told the mayor straight up, look,
it's time to open fire on these people, or it's
time to pull back, because I am not gonna let
my guys get stoned to death while they're carrying guns.
(34:21):
So just give us the order, Mayor. It's time to
ship or get off the pot. So this is where
a man in the crowd shouts, fire it burn that
damned dead of the aristocracy. Oh, and then the continuation
of this quote is priceless. You danced, fire you sons
(34:42):
of Do you dance? What does that mean? And that's
that's the anonymous voice that rose above the crowd. Oh,
working man, shall Americans or English rule? Uh? And then yeah,
so the soldiers apparently did dance, and they and they
and they fired. Yeah. I was interested in this because
in the Stephen King novel The Shining Without Spoiling It,
(35:06):
there is a scene where one character, in an exasperated tone,
is yelling out, you dasn't you dasn't like? You dare not?
I know that one. So it's it's a it's an
outdated kind of archaic expression. Now, but I was looking
into you darsn't. Does that mean you dare not? Fire? Like?
(35:30):
Were they daring the soldiers to fire? Dare you dare not? Fire?
You dare not? I think maybe dars and does dare not? Perhaps?
I don't know. It's it's it's hard to say. We
can only we can only make our best guests. But again,
they did open fire. The soldiers volleyed some shots over
the crowd's heads. They were meant more to be warning shots, uh,
(35:52):
to kind of get them to simmer down a little bit,
but it didn't really have the desired effect. Um and
book kept, you know, hurling these paving stones and all
of that. And that's when the soldiers decided to take
it to the next level, and they set their sights
and they actually fired into the crowd yep and the
(36:15):
crowd continued surging forward. It was only until this militia
threatened to use cannon fire that the crowds dispersed. And
once everything had settled relatively speaking, there were eighteen people
dead on the street, murdered by this militia, and there
(36:36):
were dozens more people who were injured, not all of
them involved in the riots, some people probably just like
walking to the deli and getting caught up in this cacophony,
this cavalcade of chaos. More than a hundred riders were arrested.
And we have an account we found, uh reprinted in
the Washington Post from eighteen forty nine that says this,
(37:00):
which followed Beggar's old description. The wounded, the dying, and
the dead was scattered in every direction. There were groans
of agony, cries for help and oaths of vengeance. Some
of the dead and wounded were laid out upon the
billiards table of Vauxhall Saloon. A large crowd gathered around
and speeches were made by excited orators. And it goes
(37:22):
on to list the number of people killed, injured, and arrested.
But it also, and this is interesting, it prints their
occupations and background information about them. They're people like people
work at grocery stores, carpenters, waiters, stuff like that. Not
to take it into contemporary political direction, but as we know,
(37:43):
the problem with riots and and looting and all of
that is people do get caught in the crossfire, and
oftentimes people that are there with the best of intentions,
that are playing by the rules get lumped in with
the quote unquote bad actors. Right, and then uh and
if if, if lethal forces involved, that's a whole another
ball game, because then everyone kind of gets swept up
(38:03):
into the melee and it's it's a nasty scene. Um.
There was a bystander by the name of Bridget Fagan
who was thirty years old, shot in the leg while
walking with her husband just along the bowery. Or a
gentleman named George Gedney thirty four, who was a Wall
Street stockbroker who was shot right through the head while
(38:24):
watching all of this stuff unfold from in front of
one of the very posh mansions, and that in that
part of the city. Um So even people that weren't
even there, like you said, had nothing to do with
the got caught up in in all of this violence.
And then you have to The thing about riots too,
is is that there's got to be a narrative and
there's always this kind of rush to blame somebody or
(38:46):
figure out, you know who, who the one person or
contingent that you know actually was the cause of said
violence was, when usually it's a combination of of multiple parties.
Not to mention the massive over correction by the cities,
um I would say, not technically legal police supplements, you know,
(39:06):
with these militia people who are gonna be much more
tugger happy than maybe trained officers. I don't know, I
don't even know if that's true or not, but it
certainly feels like it was quite an overreaction and it
was Irish immigrants that were blamed. Uh, the Irish always
get blamed. It seems like in a lot of these situations,
but the true evidence pointed to anti immigrant forces, um
(39:30):
much more than actual you know, immigrants themselves. Yeah, so
very much in line with that Gangs of New York
kind of echotomy that you mentioned at the top there. Noluh.
But what about the most controversial British actor in New
York City? Mc ready high tailed it out first through
(39:52):
a back exit of the theater, and then he high
tailed it to his posh hotel, and then because he
was worried that the mob would lay siege to his
hotel and then kill him, he high tailed it from
New York entirely in a few days. He was in Boston.
But what about the aftermath here? Oh? What about it? Indeed,
(40:14):
and real quickly, just to back check, I made a
it was kind of just an off the cuff assertion
in the top that this was during the time period
of the Gangs of New York. And then I realized
I hadn't confirmed that, so I sort of walked that back.
But now, the Gangs of New York period, with all
of those huge gang wars, was only a very brief period,
and it was from eighteen thirty four to eighteen forty four,
(40:36):
and this is an eighteen forty nine, so this really
is like right part and parcel with that whole vibe
in the city. Right. But that's why I said that,
I thought you were comparison was spot on because we
still see the antonomous Irish uh sentis and absolutely, for
some reason I just thought maybe it would have been
further removed, but it really was like right on the
(40:56):
heels of that, so that stuff would have just absolutely
still been in the air. So your to your point,
that's absolutely right. The news of the day was, you know,
was very consciously oriented toward keeping opprobrium upon that Irish
American population. We're not in any way diminished that, but
they were opportunists for sure, the media, I mean, not
(41:17):
not the Irish population, new question about it. They absolutely
had their own agendas and access to grind. And we
actually have a kind of a recollection from Major General
Charles Stanford, who led that New York militia, of of
the events that took place, and this is what he said,
I have never seen a mob so violent as the
(41:39):
one on that evening. I never before had occasion to
give the order to fire. And then you know, after
the riot, there were bodies thrown in the streets. I mean,
it really was like something out of a war movie, um,
only it was much more of like a civil war
kind of situation. It really, truly was a mini civil
war between the haves and the have nots, all over
(42:02):
which version of Macbeth they liked the best, but representing
something much larger. Yeah, that's how it started. One thing
that people don't often talk about when they talk about
the story is the second riot that almost occurred with
people marching like an army in Lower Manhattan. That riot
was quelled, uh and a few days after the first riot,
(42:27):
a jury relieved the police and militia of any and
all responsibility for the shootings, saying that they were justified.
Five more people died of their wounds in the days after,
so the total the total fatalities of this riot were
twenty three people dead, but maybe as many as thirty one,
(42:50):
and people who were seeing as instigators of the riots
were up for trial as well. Many were convicted find
and jailed, including that author Ned Buntline, who was one
of the people shouting in the crowd. He wasn't the
guy was like you darsn't, but he was. He was
hanging out with those folks. Forest continued, uh continued performing
(43:14):
after this. They both continued performing after this, And this
is I don't know what to think about this win Nol.
But he eventually had this dramatic falling out and divorce
from his English wife and went on to perform regularly
until he passed away suddenly in eighteen seventy two at
(43:37):
the age of sixty six. And you know astor place,
this area and and and the theater that that you know,
it was centered around. Um already had a reputation as
being kind of a hot spot for the wealthy and
powerful and the kind of like shining uh tower on
(43:58):
the hill, you know, where the the the elite were
able to live and work and play. And it just
kind of continued to deepen those resentments, right especially after
you know, loss of life that resulted. It was about
more than just Shakespeare and which which acted you like
the best. It really was kind of a almost like
(44:22):
a French Revolution type experience, like almost like a mini
revolution Um and it was. It did go down in
history as one of the most uh violent riots in
the city's history until the eighteen sixty three draft riots
Um that took place during the Civil War. So it's
you know, interchangeably referred to as the Shakespeare Riot or
(44:44):
the astor Place riot. And this had immediate impacts that
resonated not just in New York City but around the country. Um. Uh.
New York City police were armed at this point, where
I guess they hadn't been, and then municipal constables around
the country were also armed. Um. And the words spread
through the relatively new invention that was the telegraph. And
(45:08):
this is when you start to see a little bit
more of almost the earliest days of the militarization of
the police. Um. And you know, the idea of like
a police state or something. It's pretty fascinating. Uh. You know,
up until that point, a lot of the beat cops
would just be walking around with like nightsticks, for example.
And now they were carrying heavy firepower, and there was
(45:32):
more heavy weaponry um given to police departments and things
like armored vehicles and stuff and such. Yeah, that's why
you will see authors such as Jonathan Richards writing for
Santa Fe, New Mexican saying that this sets a precedent
for the path of increased militarization and uh. And in
(45:54):
arguing that you can trace it back there. I don't
think the answers as clear cut, but there's definitely something
to the argument. This also marked the what people call
the beginning of the end for Shakespeare as popular entertainment
in the US, because now the secret that everybody knew
(46:17):
but no one really talked about of alienation between the
various American classes was front and center. Like someone doing
a monologue. In Shakespeare, it was it was right there
for all to see, and it had a spotlight upon it,
perhaps for the first time. So the culture of the
country shifted and Shakespeare, if We're Good or Ill, started
(46:41):
to become regarded as more of a a highbrow form
of entertainment. And I do want to take this moment
to point out that Shakespeare is still very accessible and
super enjoyable if you get the chance to see a
solid production of it on stage. Uh, the shows are
a lot of fun, They're worth the price of a ticket,
and perhaps most importantly, you don't have to riot to
(47:03):
have a riotous good time. Well said Ben Well said,
And way to bring a full circle, so we can
wrap this one up for today. Huge thanks to super
producer Casey Pragam Here in spirit today along with Christopher Hascios.
They're kind of hovering above us in the clouds, looking
down on us like good ghost parents. Uh, and I
really appreciate that as always. Yeah, and of course huge
(47:24):
thanks to the quister also known as Jonathan Strickland, who
was gonna be a little bit a little bit dumpling
steamed to know that. Uh, we didn't have him on
his Shakespeare episode, but we'll make it up to him.
And of course big big thanks to Gaye Lousier or
Gaye Lousier however you wish to pronounce it for some
(47:46):
awesome research Alley oops with us one h thanks to
Alex Williams who composed our themis Jeff Coach. Check out
her show um this day in History class, along with
amazing new things that she's got in the in the
works that can't talk about quite yet, but be on
the lookout big things coming from Eaves and man beat.
Thanks to you for joining me in this Shakespeare Ryan
(48:07):
throwing back a bottle of good tidings. Uh and great
joy and old thanks for thanks for shotgunning with me
on this one without either of us actually firing a shotgun,
which apparently sets the bar of podcasting a little bit
higher than the bar of mid Shakespeare performances. I don't
(48:28):
know if there's an Emmy for that or a Webby,
but you know, you can just you can just reward
us by hanging out with us on the internet where
we are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, We're Ridiculous History or some
derivation thereof. But of course the best place to find us,
and more importantly your fellow listeners is to join Ridiculous
(48:50):
Historians our Facebook page. Yes, I have to do his
name one or both or anybody part of the Ridiculous
History mythos uh, and you'll be in and lots of
good times to be had there. Uh. You can also
check out me and Ben as individual human beings on
the Internet. I am at how Now Noel Brown on Instagram,
I am at Ben Bulling H s W on Twitter,
(49:11):
and I am at Ben Bulling on Instagram, where I
go through various weird visual thesis like right now I
live with a life size plastic skeleton, because that's that's
where I am. In the age of pandemic names. We're
all somewhere doing our best every day. Please join us
for the next episode of Ridiculous History, where super Breuster
(49:33):
Casey Pegram will return from his his sick leave and
and hopefully we'll make him brown. We'll see you next
time Fox. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
(49:54):
listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye.
(00:27):
Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
so much for tuning in. My writer Die and I
here have off off. Mike agreed. There is only there's
one and only one way to introduce today's episode, and
that's this Shakespeare Riots ryant. That's as far as we
(00:48):
got with the song. Right brow chair up on the stage,
the Shakespeare Riot Riot. This is not I don't know,
I got nothing, what is it? Well, so this is
let's see, um, it's over the bard. We wage no
nothing not good, not good. Well, we'll look at the
(01:09):
we'll look at the lyrics and spend some time or
maybe you can help us out with this. We're looking
for zoot Suit Riot written as Shakespeare Riot, and we'd
love to hear your take on the lyrics, uh anywhere
on the internet, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook page Ridiculous Historians.
Maybe we can come up with some of our own
(01:30):
off air. How will I write this parody song? You
may be asking yourself, Well, it's very simple. You'll learn
all you need in today's episode. Well, and the good
news is I've already set the bar remarkably low. With
my ham fisted attempt at this, but you know I
was really it was just right off the cuff. I
didn't even think about this bend you threw that. You
surprised me with this cherry pop and Daddy's ref So please,
(01:54):
ridiculous historians, do us a solid and make us proud
right right, this song and needs to exist. Weird Al
hasn't done it. Who else is going to? I don't
know if it could be you, but it's true. Today
we're talking about no joke riot, like you know, practically
burning things to the ground. I think there is an
attempt at arson at some point in this story, and
it's all around. It's like in that time of New
(02:16):
York City history, kind of like Gangs of New York era,
if I'm not mistaken with like the Bowery Boys and
all of that stuff. Actually that might be later. Forget
I said anything about Gangs of New York. But it
is sort of still that frontier kind of like you know,
mentality of like, you know, there's the very high salutin
old money types, which were pretty much British transplants who
(02:41):
still are quite rich, and then there's like the new
middle class, and then there's like the lower class and
a lot of that stuff. Those crowds come together in entertainment.
That's where the haves and the have nots kind of
meat Taylor as old as time, we see it throughout
history and America was it so much no own as
being like like a theater place. It was very much
(03:03):
a British thing. And obviously Shakespeare is the most famous
British you know, arguably now I think pretty much unquestionably
there was famous British playwright of all time. And this
was now starting to you know, show up in the States.
But there still wasn't like a famous British equivalent to
like the the great British actors, you know, And this
(03:26):
story is kind of about that American equivalent and the uh,
the the hufflepuff that's not the right word, the hubble
brew ha ha. That those uh that those clashing factions
uh created when you know, people were feeling like maybe
this uh, this gentleman was too low brow to tread
(03:48):
the boards right right, and this is uh, this is
where of course we point out, uh, the notable absence
of our super producer Casey Pegram, who is still so
upset by the historical event that he uh, he wasn't
able to make it to the recording. Today, we're with you, Casey, uh,
and you'll be you're joining us in spirit. But we
(04:11):
understand how how you're still still a little sore about
about the issue his very sensibilities of all that is good.
We're so shaken that he had to take a take
a sick day today. Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket,
that's the theater ticket. You're you're right, Noel, and I
love the way that you have set out the stage
for our story today. You see, one of the biggest
(04:35):
incidents of public outrage and pandemonium in the entire history
of the Big Apple was really a fight about theater. Uh.
And we're going to learn how a tremendously difficult feud
between two actors lead to widespread chaos. So let's introduce
(05:00):
were two principal actors for this story who are also
actors themselves. There's England's William McCready and from the US
there's Edwin Forrest. Now, both of these guys were already
big deals. They were professional actors. They were in their
glory days. They had each toward the other's country in
(05:20):
various productions, and they were known on both sides of
the pond. But McCready sort of represented that old school
idea of Shakespearean or British actors. Forrest was a young
gun in every sense of the word. He was thirteen
years younger than William and he also represented this sort
(05:44):
of this sort of new school of actors who came
from an American background. Yeah, that's right. It's like you
think of, oh, what's that Saturday Night Live sketch? Whereas
is it Mike Myers who does the whole acting that
that thing John John Lovett's acting. That's right, And yeah,
it's it's definitely like that that tradition, a very large
(06:08):
kind of you know, almost scenery chewing kind of attitude
of that kind of Shakespearean acting where it's all about
big performances because as we know, you know, stage acting
requires big performances. Otherwise, those uh, gestures and glances and
looks and and nuances that might be easier to to
see on a screen with zoomed in camera, you can't
(06:31):
do that on on on a on a stage when
you're maybe you know, hundred feet away and the chief
seats or or more even um so you really got
to kind of like sell it um. And that is
what McCready represented. The traditional style of Great Britain and
classical British theater. Forest, who was much younger, Um was.
(06:52):
He brought a different kind of bravado to the stage.
It's possible that I'm overstating the bigness of British acting
because it was possibly of to the more nuanced Um,
but it had a little bit more of an effect
quality to it, a little bit more of a daintiness
and delicate nature. And this Forest guy was all, you know,
piss and vinegar and bigness and machismo. And American audiences
(07:16):
flipped for this guy, first of all because he was
one of their own, you know, given those British conquerors
what for uh you know, in in in the theater,
theatrical sense um. But he had really started to develop
kind of a distinct cultural identity for American theater that
(07:36):
was different from that British school. And I would argue,
first off, I have rarely been a professional actor in
my life. I mainly did uh sketch comedy and a
couple of few serious pieces. But I would argue that
this difference exists in a form today very quickly. For instance,
(07:56):
imagine some of the most famous American actors, people like
al Pacino. That's always going to be seen as al
Pacino on camera, right, and it's less chameleon like. There's
something to be said, uh and and I'm not sure
how to freeze it. There's something to be said to
the idea that European actors are often lauded for their
(08:20):
ability to become subsumed in a role, while many US
actors are lauded for their ability to kind of always
be themselves. Hey, it's me Robert de Niro, Bobby de Niro.
I'm playing a French duke in this movie. But this
is still how I do you know? Or Keanu reeves
uh may science and the God's bless him. He seems
(08:43):
like such a great guy. But man, if you rewatch
Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, which I thoroughly enjoy. Uh that accent,
that accent is tough. I know what, the Boston sleeps exactly. Yeah.
But you know what, you never got cast in a
role like that ever again. And I would argue that
Kanu reeves as a secret weapon, a magic bullet when
(09:03):
used properly. And I think I saw an article not
to get too off topic, about how he is sort
of one of the most underappreciated actors in American cinema,
and that's largely because people just think he's a dummy
and he doesn't really know what he's doing. But yet,
why why is he so beloved? It's not just coincidence,
It's not just because he's cute. There's something to Kiana Reeves.
(09:25):
He brings a kindness and that sort of empathy to
his roles. Uh, And I think that really translates, and
that's why he's such a big deal. And I think
that all all of the actors we have mentioned thus far,
and many that we haven't mentioned thus far, are in
their own way, profoundly talented, you know. I I think
it's I think it's kind of lazy for people to
just keep opprobrium on an actor. There's there's usually going
(09:49):
to be a reason that they're in so many films, right,
professionals assessed their abilities and found them more than adequate,
So kudos to wall. It is tremendously difficult work to
be a working actor, and you live and die by
the fans, right, That's true for any entertainment. That's true
for uh K pop and groups like BTS, that's true
(10:14):
for sports teams and more. These actors each had their
own fan clubs, and they were like soccer hool again
level or football hool again level, opposed to each other.
The wealthy upper class anglophiles in England and in the US,
they were McCready people, the the uh the working class,
(10:39):
the folks who were like, yeah, I like theater. What
does that surprise you? Okay, like theater, I worked, you
know what? The ducks and I go see Macbeth. What's
wrong with that? This is America, baby, Those folks like Forest. Well,
if I'm not mistaken, then I mean this is also
pre what we might consider some of the more base,
lowbrow types forms of entertainment in the States, things like
(11:02):
cabaret or things like vaudeville, you know. Like so at
the time, the reason there was such a clash between
these two classes was because this was really the only
game in town. Was this kind of classical theater, you know, Like,
I don't know, I mean, I'm sure there were some
other things that were approaching what I'm talking about, but
it certainly wasn't that golden era, yet where there were
(11:22):
like a much more of a body type of crowd
that maybe the highbrows wouldn't go to. They were occupying
the same theaters, checking out the same uh, performances that
were largely classical works. Not classical all the time, but
things by Shakespeare, maybe even Greek theater or Rome, what
have you. So there was definitely this interesting opportunity for
culture clash to take place, and boy do we have
(11:43):
a good one coming. But real quick, let's just a
little further some up kind of they's individual actress style.
William Charles McCready was known for that kind of more
Faye effect kind of handkerchief wavings is how Smithsonian Magazine
refers to it um in his port trail of Hamlet,
and he was a beloved portrayer of Hamlet. That was
(12:03):
one of his most famous roles. Uh. Forest, on the
other hand, like we said, took it a little bit
more of a blunt instrument approach. Yeah, And Forrest was
more of the Shakespearean protagonist as action hero, you know
what I mean. This guy was here to kick ass
and spit quatrains. And I have no idea if that's correct.
(12:29):
But here's here's the thing. They also became symbols as
we've sort of been foreshadowing of anti English and pro
English sentiment. We have to remember this was like just
maybe two generations after the Revolutionary War. That means it
was still a hot topic. So even the word English
(12:53):
was considered to kind of a sideways dig against the
wealthy in the US and what we're seeing as their
British sympathies. Shakespeare, oddly enough escaped this anti English sentiment.
Americans loved Shakespeare, they loved the stories, they love the writing.
(13:16):
They just wanted no part of what they saw as
the foreign stage direction. They were like, yeah, forrest this guy,
this bust heads and take names approach to British protagonists,
and that's what we need, not this uptype formality. And
while that might seem weird, we have to remember this
was pre internet, this was pre telephone, pre television, so
(13:39):
traveling performers were often seen as representatives of their own countries,
whether they liked it or not. So when a lot
of people would see McReady, they would think, Okay, this
is what every single British person. It's like, how interesting
is that? Ben sort of goes to what I was
talking about earlier, that maybe it had to do it
just a lack of options. But you know, now we
(14:00):
think of Shakespeare is something that you learn in college,
and you know, we might occasionally get like a bas
learnman adaptation of one that's got like boobs and you know,
violence and and and chopping heads and things like that.
So there's definitely still a little bit of that populace
sentiment around Shakespeare, but much less so. There's an article
on the Santa Fe, New Mexicans website that kind of
tells the story of this rivalry that categorizes it like this.
(14:23):
Prospectors and trappers recited Shakespeare around campfires, reading from battered
volumes carried in their packs or cobbling together heartfelt pastichious
from memory. Um, really fascinating. This really was kind of
the people's He was the people's bard, you know, right, yeah,
voice of the people. And so let's let's dive into
(14:45):
how McReady and Forest became such uh, such bitter pills
toward one another. It all started years back. McReady had
toward the United States, and Forest more or less emulated him.
He performed the same roles that McReady was known for
(15:07):
at different theaters across the country, and the public love
this idea of dueling actors. There's almost like a w
W E vibe here because there was this transatlantic rivalry.
Supporting that one actor or another in a role became
kind of a statement of one's sentiments regarding the transatlantic
(15:32):
rivalry at large. And so when Forrest went to England,
the crowds came out, there were butts in the seats,
there were ground lanes in the ground lean area. And
when he came back to England later in the mid
eighteen forties for a second tour, you can read a
(15:52):
great article about this on thought Co, the crowds were sparse.
Did Forest blame his performance? Did he blame the source
material or did he blame the production team? No, he
blamed McReady. That's son of a fish. He said. I
was sabotaged. Yeah I was. I was sabotaged. And so
we physically showed up in a performance that McReady was
(16:16):
involved in and started heckling him from the audience like
this boom. You know it's funny. I read another article
about this, or I think I watched and I know
what it was. There's this guy I've been really enjoying
on on YouTube. Goes by the history Guy and he
does these kind of short little uh, you know, quick
blasts through like interesting little history stories. And we've we
(16:37):
referenced him a few times on the show. But he
talks about how these guys kind of knew each other,
they had at least crossed paths, and they were friendly
to a point. Uh. And the first thing, yeah, and
then things got nasty. But you gotta wonder, you know,
it's like these hip hop beefs we see today, you
gotta wonder if there's calculation behind them sometimes where it's
sort of like, hey, no, no press is bad press.
(16:58):
Maybe if we drum up some kind of leg rivalry,
it'll it'll, you know, it'll up our returns on both ends.
UM doesn't seem like that was the case here because
there was actual loss of money happening, because it was like, Okay,
you're gonna you're gonna cause me to not have as
many people come to the show. I'm gonna show up
and hiss from from the box seats. Uh, And that
(17:19):
really UM set things on a collision course for disaster.
And we know this is the case, uh, because Okay,
so the this is when the rivalry begins. So Forest
shows up in Edinburgh when mc ready is performing Hamlet,
(17:40):
as you guessed it Hamlet, and oddly enough, theater was
much more interactive at this level there is maybe considered
to be today because it wasn't uncommon for a spectator
to heckle, and mc ready may have gone on and
just take that and stride his bruised ego aside, but
(18:03):
he recognized that it was Forest. And then Forrest went
in and wrote a letter to the London Times where
he defended his behavior. He said it was quote is
salutary and wholesome corrective to the abuses of the stage.
The truth is Mr McGready thought fit to introduce a
(18:24):
fancy dance into his performance of Hamlet, which I thought,
and still think a desecration of the scene, and at
which I evinced that disapprobation. What is it? A fancy
dance like a little uh, like a little jig like
I got it? Who knows that that would be a first?
(18:47):
And then McCready, uh, you know, in in in, in
true dandy British fashion, made a very snippy entry in
his diary where he commented on the affairs such. I
do not think that's such an action as a parallel
in all theatrical history, the low minded ruffian perfect. I
(19:09):
think he's referring, he's referring to Forest. There is a
low that is them's fighting words. Low minded Ruffian in
those days might as well be you know, a serious
Ethan and Jeff and kind of slur. And notice how
that that plays into the British stereotypes of knuckle headed
residents of the US. And it's weird because in Europe
(19:34):
McReady is very well established. He has the infrastructure, he
has the pr they're on his side, and his supporters
worked assiduously to ensure that Forest is performances didn't get
a lot of coverage in the press, so he wasn't
getting the headlines and the ink that he wanted, and
this sabotaged his uh, his obsession one that should be
(19:57):
familiar to many actors in the audience today. Global fame
and then Forest in return made it difficult for Ready
to play in the States. There was a performance McReady
had in Cincinnati, and the patrons, the audience members, the
secret Forest fans intentionally went there to try and sabotage
(20:20):
the production. They threw half a dead sheep onto the stage,
and these guys kept like snipping each other back and
forth in the press. So to your point, Noll, I
don't know how sincere they. I think the two actors
were sincere. But I am sure there were promoters and
so on who were fanning the flames because they realized
it was good publicity and it's back and forth in
(20:43):
the press. These kind of little digs, uh, just went
on and on and on and really began to just
kind of deepen those resentments on both sides of the divide.
Like we said, the anglophile has you know, in the
MacCready camp and the more working class you know, um
football hooligan types, not to oversimplify um and the forester camp.
(21:07):
And it all was heading to a battleground situation, um
where things would ultimately kind of boil over in a
pretty remarkable fashion. We have our characters, we have our context.
(21:27):
Now let's look at our figurative and literal stage. The
theater at astor place is in a wealthy neighborhood Broadway
should be familiar to everybody else. It is within shouting
distance of the Bowery, which is working class. The Bowery
Theaters where Forrest made his stage debut, and it's where
(21:49):
neighborhood street gangs known as bhoys be Apostrophe h o
y s went to while out they would throw peanuts,
they would they would holler along with the works of Shakespeare,
or they would climb on stage and try to mess
with the actors. The Astor Place Theater was the polar
(22:10):
opposite velvet seats. You gotta show up with white gloves,
monocles not required, but encouraged totally. And uh, basically it
was considered scandalous if someone showed up to the Astor
Place Theater not in an expensive carriage. So of course
that's where McReady goes. That's right. And you know I
(22:31):
mentioned at the top of the show the idea of
kind of that that new Ish working class um, the
Bowery Boys and things like that. They were they were
there was a gang, but they also were just kind
of a group of you know, street tufts that kind
of hung around the Bowery neighborhood. So you definitely had
it wasn't very far from where the Astor Theater was,
(22:52):
so there was you know, it was easy for them
to kind of like get when that there that there
was going to be this event and decide they were
going to uh you know, not co opted exactly, but
a bit of a party crashing situation. So, um, when
McCready gets this kind of engagement at the Aster Place
Theater in eighteen forty nine and the Springs will be
(23:14):
his third tour of the United States, uh, it was
essentially fighting words, um, you know, as far as the
Bowery Boys and that kind of Echelona society were concerned.
So on May seventh, eighteen forty nine, McCready was about
to hit the stage as Macbeth in the in the
Scottish play, that's what they call it. And uh, this
(23:37):
that's when these working class New York folks who had
bought tickets started filing into the Astor Opera House, which
is which is the official name of the place. And
it was actually, if I'm not mistaken, they had previously
only done opera and then they started to kind of
diversify a little bit because I think they wanted to
I don't know, like broaden the reach, I guess, and
(23:59):
and make more money. Um that's just the way it looks,
um from my perspective. So it started to get a
little rough feeling, and you started to see, you know,
a lot of these uh folks that were more used
to the white glove and monocle uh situation. We started
to see this other contingent kind of filing in and
it sort of gave them a little bit of pause.
(24:22):
Uh McCready went on stage. I started to deliver the
first of his lines and was immediately cheered boot pissed
at uh. And there were things like three grounds for
the English bull dog, let's all for native talent. They
wouldn't have said it in an English accent. They were
(24:42):
in English at all. I don't know why I said that.
It was funny they could there. You go, let's assume
that's the case. Huzzah for the native talent exactly. I
love hazzah. Huzzah is universal. You don't have to be
British or American to use his uh um. And things
just got worse from their apparent only it got so
noisy that the performers had to kind of continue the
(25:05):
performance in pantomime because he couldn't even hear the dialogue.
And then things escalated from there in terms of like
things getting chucked on stage, right, Yeah, Yeah, I'm I'm
most My favorite part of this story is the same
crowd cheered when mc duff first enters the story. She's
(25:25):
as as you recall Shakespeare fans, he's the character who
goes on to kill Macbeth spoilers. So that's how profoundly
they hated McReady. And the stage wasn't just pelted with
uh playbills or peanuts. People had brought things to throw
at him, eggs, bottles, pennies, rotten fruit. Yes, that really
(25:47):
used to happen. People would throw rotten fruit at actors,
and eventually they had to end the performance before the
play itself was done. At the same time, across town, Forest,
by the way, is doing his own performance of Macbeth
to a packed house of his own supporters, and this
(26:08):
made mcgreedy livid in a very you know, buttoned up
British way. He said, I'm going to cancel my tour.
I'm leaving this golf of saking country full good. And
it took some of New York's most highly regarded elites
begging him for him to you know, reluctantly change his mind.
(26:30):
Uh the other word, like the society folks, the literary giants,
and so they said, Okay, we're gonna do another performance.
We're going to call it a premier. We're gonna do
it three days later. And that's where they messed up
because this, fellow ridiculous historians, gave the authorities time to prepare,
but it also gave the It also gave those mutual
(26:52):
fan clubs time to prepare. Unless we need to really
not uh bury the lead here. This was more than
just like drunken heckling. This, like we said, this represented
serious tensions between the upper and lower and middle classes.
Uh and also the pro British versus staunchly anti anything
(27:16):
foreign sentiments. So I mean, this was serious business. This
represented something very real, even if it was just kind
of like, you know, it seems a little frivolous talking
about it now, I was like, wow, it was just
like a freaking play. It's basically just like getting bad
of shape about like you know, a movie or something,
which not to say people don't do that that that,
but certainly not to this degree. Um. There was a
(27:37):
militia assembled, A three fifty person militia was assembled, and
it was stationed at Washington Square Park on the ready
right then, um, and they were kind of expecting that
there was going to be some trouble, and that was
assembled by the city's mayor, who was a Wig. That's
(27:58):
a holdover from British governing. Yeah. The Whig Party, which
is no longer active now, was pretty active in the
eighteen hundreds. They were an oppositional party. They rose to
oppose President Andrew Jackson. So they their main constituents, or
their their main components were former members of the Democratic Party,
(28:22):
the Anti Masonic Party, which is a good thing for
an episode later, and the National Republican Party got it.
So would they have been more pro British or more
pro you know, British sentiment or is this not even
something that is worth considering in this situation. They you know,
it's it's almost an episode of its own. They ultimately
(28:48):
self destructed over the question of whether or not slavery
should be expanded to the territories in the country at
the time. So there were a lot of what we
would call haves in the Whig Party. Okay, so this
would have largely this three fifty man militia. We could
probably consider them kind of in the MacCready camp. Oh yeah, oh,
(29:11):
they're there to there to oppose the unwashed masses and
their hooligan ring. Yeah. Oh, also, uh, Abraham Lincoln was
leader of the Whig Party in Illinois once upon a time,
So you know, I I don't want to paint with
two broad a brush there, but yes, the three man
(29:31):
strong militia was organized to stop any potential shenanigans on
the part of forest supporters. So we fast forward tine
the second performance still called a premier for marketing purposes.
That's right, that's right. And let's also point out we
(29:53):
may have glossed over this. This was essentially the rich
contingent saying, how da are you treat our beloved MacCready
in this way? You absolute trash human beings. We are
going to be completely tone deaf about what this few represents,
and we just think he deserves them all again because
(30:14):
you were so you know, uh, dastardly to him with
your rudeness and your pelting of eggs and all of that.
They probably should have left well enough alone, Ben, not
realizing that this was actually the match that could ignite
an actual powder k. I'm not an actual literal powder
keg a figurative powder k or an actual riot or
(30:35):
conflict in the streets. But they were more concerned about
coming off as as uh refined to this this gentleman
and making sure that he would return to regale them
with with with his uh you know, handkerchief waving performances
in future engagements. Yeah, that's the thing they were. There
was a lot of let us subjugate the lower class,
(30:57):
teach them a lesson kind of reasoning behind their activities.
I could just see, you know, I can see the
members of high society shaking their hands in the ceiling
of their chandelier and going the uncoutherie of it all
the year, uncouthie. Uh so, yeah, you're you're absolutely right.
Things got shady so quickly. Two officers from the police
(31:21):
force were inside the theater, seventy five more were outside,
but the crowd easily outnumbered them. We're talking about more
than ten thousand people, and people in the crowd learned
of an unethical trick. The McReady contingent had pulled an
advance of the play. You see, they intentionally oversold the
(31:41):
tickets for the show, and this gave the ushers the
opportunity to uh, as the Smithsonian Mental Flaws phrase it,
weed out the riff raff and still have a sold
out premier. So they did this, by the way, because
McReady's agents sold tickets that had a special identifying mark
(32:04):
that said to the ushers, these are the people we
actually want in the theater. So the four supporters who
managed to get in in the first place found themselves
cherry picked and arrested during the first act of the play,
and the crowd of McGready fans were loudly cheering as
they saw these people get dragged off, And then that's
(32:26):
when eventually the prisoners set their holding cell on fire.
One man yelling, I paid for ticket and they wouldn't
let me in because I hadn't kid gloves in a
white vest. Damn them. Kid gloves. Is that where that
expression comes round? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, go goat skin. Yeah,
I got it, kid. I always as soon handling things
(32:48):
with kid gloves meant like, like, you know, having to
deal with a small child. I was always give the
other one these gloves for children, Like I confused. That
makes perfect sense. Kid gloves, Marzi oats and dozy dots
and all that stuff. Kids isn't even in that rhyme.
What am I talking about? I just google it. It's
it's a it's a funny rhyme about types of goats
(33:11):
or something. Um. But yeah, it's true. People started throwing
bricks or as they referred to them in those days,
paving stones, um. And it was you know absolute bedlum.
Windows were being broken. Uh. The opera house really started
to look like that scene and lay miss, you know,
with a barricade in the middle of the street and
like you know, burning refuse piled up in and like
(33:34):
a weird pyramid and uh yeah, I mean it's absolutely
a scene, you know, like something out of out of
a war movie inside an opera house. So now the
opera house is starting to look like it is under siege,
(33:57):
like there's some sort of army invading. Police and the
state militia try to keep the crowds away from the theater.
One General William Hall told the mayor straight up, look,
it's time to open fire on these people, or it's
time to pull back, because I am not gonna let
my guys get stoned to death while they're carrying guns.
(34:21):
So just give us the order, Mayor. It's time to
ship or get off the pot. So this is where
a man in the crowd shouts, fire it burn that
damned dead of the aristocracy. Oh, and then the continuation
of this quote is priceless. You danced, fire you sons
(34:42):
of Do you dance? What does that mean? And that's
that's the anonymous voice that rose above the crowd. Oh,
working man, shall Americans or English rule? Uh? And then yeah,
so the soldiers apparently did dance, and they and they
and they fired. Yeah. I was interested in this because
in the Stephen King novel The Shining Without Spoiling It,
(35:06):
there is a scene where one character, in an exasperated tone,
is yelling out, you dasn't you dasn't like? You dare not?
I know that one. So it's it's a it's an
outdated kind of archaic expression. Now, but I was looking
into you darsn't. Does that mean you dare not? Fire? Like?
(35:30):
Were they daring the soldiers to fire? Dare you dare not? Fire?
You dare not? I think maybe dars and does dare not? Perhaps?
I don't know. It's it's it's hard to say. We
can only we can only make our best guests. But again,
they did open fire. The soldiers volleyed some shots over
the crowd's heads. They were meant more to be warning shots, uh,
(35:52):
to kind of get them to simmer down a little bit,
but it didn't really have the desired effect. Um and
book kept, you know, hurling these paving stones and all
of that. And that's when the soldiers decided to take
it to the next level, and they set their sights
and they actually fired into the crowd yep and the
(36:15):
crowd continued surging forward. It was only until this militia
threatened to use cannon fire that the crowds dispersed. And
once everything had settled relatively speaking, there were eighteen people
dead on the street, murdered by this militia, and there
(36:36):
were dozens more people who were injured, not all of
them involved in the riots, some people probably just like
walking to the deli and getting caught up in this cacophony,
this cavalcade of chaos. More than a hundred riders were arrested.
And we have an account we found, uh reprinted in
the Washington Post from eighteen forty nine that says this,
(37:00):
which followed Beggar's old description. The wounded, the dying, and
the dead was scattered in every direction. There were groans
of agony, cries for help and oaths of vengeance. Some
of the dead and wounded were laid out upon the
billiards table of Vauxhall Saloon. A large crowd gathered around
and speeches were made by excited orators. And it goes
(37:22):
on to list the number of people killed, injured, and arrested.
But it also, and this is interesting, it prints their
occupations and background information about them. They're people like people
work at grocery stores, carpenters, waiters, stuff like that. Not
to take it into contemporary political direction, but as we know,
(37:43):
the problem with riots and and looting and all of
that is people do get caught in the crossfire, and
oftentimes people that are there with the best of intentions,
that are playing by the rules get lumped in with
the quote unquote bad actors. Right, and then uh and
if if, if lethal forces involved, that's a whole another
ball game, because then everyone kind of gets swept up
(38:03):
into the melee and it's it's a nasty scene. Um.
There was a bystander by the name of Bridget Fagan
who was thirty years old, shot in the leg while
walking with her husband just along the bowery. Or a
gentleman named George Gedney thirty four, who was a Wall
Street stockbroker who was shot right through the head while
(38:24):
watching all of this stuff unfold from in front of
one of the very posh mansions, and that in that
part of the city. Um So even people that weren't
even there, like you said, had nothing to do with
the got caught up in in all of this violence.
And then you have to The thing about riots too,
is is that there's got to be a narrative and
there's always this kind of rush to blame somebody or
(38:46):
figure out, you know who, who the one person or
contingent that you know actually was the cause of said
violence was, when usually it's a combination of of multiple parties.
Not to mention the massive over correction by the cities,
um I would say, not technically legal police supplements, you know,
(39:06):
with these militia people who are gonna be much more
tugger happy than maybe trained officers. I don't know, I
don't even know if that's true or not, but it
certainly feels like it was quite an overreaction and it
was Irish immigrants that were blamed. Uh, the Irish always
get blamed. It seems like in a lot of these situations,
but the true evidence pointed to anti immigrant forces, um
(39:30):
much more than actual you know, immigrants themselves. Yeah, so
very much in line with that Gangs of New York
kind of echotomy that you mentioned at the top there. Noluh.
But what about the most controversial British actor in New
York City? Mc ready high tailed it out first through
(39:52):
a back exit of the theater, and then he high
tailed it to his posh hotel, and then because he
was worried that the mob would lay siege to his
hotel and then kill him, he high tailed it from
New York entirely in a few days. He was in Boston.
But what about the aftermath here? Oh? What about it? Indeed,
(40:14):
and real quickly, just to back check, I made a
it was kind of just an off the cuff assertion
in the top that this was during the time period
of the Gangs of New York. And then I realized
I hadn't confirmed that, so I sort of walked that back.
But now, the Gangs of New York period, with all
of those huge gang wars, was only a very brief period,
and it was from eighteen thirty four to eighteen forty four,
(40:36):
and this is an eighteen forty nine, so this really
is like right part and parcel with that whole vibe
in the city. Right. But that's why I said that,
I thought you were comparison was spot on because we
still see the antonomous Irish uh sentis and absolutely, for
some reason I just thought maybe it would have been
further removed, but it really was like right on the
(40:56):
heels of that, so that stuff would have just absolutely
still been in the air. So your to your point,
that's absolutely right. The news of the day was, you know,
was very consciously oriented toward keeping opprobrium upon that Irish
American population. We're not in any way diminished that, but
they were opportunists for sure, the media, I mean, not
(41:17):
not the Irish population, new question about it. They absolutely
had their own agendas and access to grind. And we
actually have a kind of a recollection from Major General
Charles Stanford, who led that New York militia, of of
the events that took place, and this is what he said,
I have never seen a mob so violent as the
(41:39):
one on that evening. I never before had occasion to
give the order to fire. And then you know, after
the riot, there were bodies thrown in the streets. I mean,
it really was like something out of a war movie, um,
only it was much more of like a civil war
kind of situation. It really, truly was a mini civil
war between the haves and the have nots, all over
(42:02):
which version of Macbeth they liked the best, but representing
something much larger. Yeah, that's how it started. One thing
that people don't often talk about when they talk about
the story is the second riot that almost occurred with
people marching like an army in Lower Manhattan. That riot
was quelled, uh and a few days after the first riot,
(42:27):
a jury relieved the police and militia of any and
all responsibility for the shootings, saying that they were justified.
Five more people died of their wounds in the days after,
so the total the total fatalities of this riot were
twenty three people dead, but maybe as many as thirty one,
(42:50):
and people who were seeing as instigators of the riots
were up for trial as well. Many were convicted find
and jailed, including that author Ned Buntline, who was one
of the people shouting in the crowd. He wasn't the
guy was like you darsn't, but he was. He was
hanging out with those folks. Forest continued, uh continued performing
(43:14):
after this. They both continued performing after this, And this
is I don't know what to think about this win Nol.
But he eventually had this dramatic falling out and divorce
from his English wife and went on to perform regularly
until he passed away suddenly in eighteen seventy two at
(43:37):
the age of sixty six. And you know astor place,
this area and and and the theater that that you know,
it was centered around. Um already had a reputation as
being kind of a hot spot for the wealthy and
powerful and the kind of like shining uh tower on
(43:58):
the hill, you know, where the the the elite were
able to live and work and play. And it just
kind of continued to deepen those resentments, right especially after
you know, loss of life that resulted. It was about
more than just Shakespeare and which which acted you like
the best. It really was kind of a almost like
(44:22):
a French Revolution type experience, like almost like a mini
revolution Um and it was. It did go down in
history as one of the most uh violent riots in
the city's history until the eighteen sixty three draft riots
Um that took place during the Civil War. So it's
you know, interchangeably referred to as the Shakespeare Riot or
(44:44):
the astor Place riot. And this had immediate impacts that
resonated not just in New York City but around the country. Um. Uh.
New York City police were armed at this point, where
I guess they hadn't been, and then municipal constables around
the country were also armed. Um. And the words spread
through the relatively new invention that was the telegraph. And
(45:08):
this is when you start to see a little bit
more of almost the earliest days of the militarization of
the police. Um. And you know, the idea of like
a police state or something. It's pretty fascinating. Uh. You know,
up until that point, a lot of the beat cops
would just be walking around with like nightsticks, for example.
And now they were carrying heavy firepower, and there was
(45:32):
more heavy weaponry um given to police departments and things
like armored vehicles and stuff and such. Yeah, that's why
you will see authors such as Jonathan Richards writing for
Santa Fe, New Mexican saying that this sets a precedent
for the path of increased militarization and uh. And in
(45:54):
arguing that you can trace it back there. I don't
think the answers as clear cut, but there's definitely something
to the argument. This also marked the what people call
the beginning of the end for Shakespeare as popular entertainment
in the US, because now the secret that everybody knew
(46:17):
but no one really talked about of alienation between the
various American classes was front and center. Like someone doing
a monologue. In Shakespeare, it was it was right there
for all to see, and it had a spotlight upon it,
perhaps for the first time. So the culture of the
country shifted and Shakespeare, if We're Good or Ill, started
(46:41):
to become regarded as more of a a highbrow form
of entertainment. And I do want to take this moment
to point out that Shakespeare is still very accessible and
super enjoyable if you get the chance to see a
solid production of it on stage. Uh, the shows are
a lot of fun, They're worth the price of a ticket,
and perhaps most importantly, you don't have to riot to
(47:03):
have a riotous good time. Well said Ben Well said,
And way to bring a full circle, so we can
wrap this one up for today. Huge thanks to super
producer Casey Pragam Here in spirit today along with Christopher Hascios.
They're kind of hovering above us in the clouds, looking
down on us like good ghost parents. Uh, and I
really appreciate that as always. Yeah, and of course huge
(47:24):
thanks to the quister also known as Jonathan Strickland, who
was gonna be a little bit a little bit dumpling
steamed to know that. Uh, we didn't have him on
his Shakespeare episode, but we'll make it up to him.
And of course big big thanks to Gaye Lousier or
Gaye Lousier however you wish to pronounce it for some
(47:46):
awesome research Alley oops with us one h thanks to
Alex Williams who composed our themis Jeff Coach. Check out
her show um this day in History class, along with
amazing new things that she's got in the in the
works that can't talk about quite yet, but be on
the lookout big things coming from Eaves and man beat.
Thanks to you for joining me in this Shakespeare Ryan
(48:07):
throwing back a bottle of good tidings. Uh and great
joy and old thanks for thanks for shotgunning with me
on this one without either of us actually firing a shotgun,
which apparently sets the bar of podcasting a little bit
higher than the bar of mid Shakespeare performances. I don't
(48:28):
know if there's an Emmy for that or a Webby,
but you know, you can just you can just reward
us by hanging out with us on the internet where
we are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, We're Ridiculous History or some
derivation thereof. But of course the best place to find us,
and more importantly your fellow listeners is to join Ridiculous
(48:50):
Historians our Facebook page. Yes, I have to do his
name one or both or anybody part of the Ridiculous
History mythos uh, and you'll be in and lots of
good times to be had there. Uh. You can also
check out me and Ben as individual human beings on
the Internet. I am at how Now Noel Brown on Instagram,
I am at Ben Bulling H s W on Twitter,
(49:11):
and I am at Ben Bulling on Instagram, where I
go through various weird visual thesis like right now I
live with a life size plastic skeleton, because that's that's
where I am. In the age of pandemic names. We're
all somewhere doing our best every day. Please join us
for the next episode of Ridiculous History, where super Breuster
(49:33):
Casey Pegram will return from his his sick leave and
and hopefully we'll make him brown. We'll see you next
time Fox. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
(49:54):
listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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