The Hiss

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1:05One 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 MacReady 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. McCready was 56 and had been a star for decades.

1:56He 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.

2:40This 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.

3:23The 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 have been proved a liar. And then someone shouted, 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.

4:25And 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, MacReady wrote, and we talked over what was to be done. But later, when he was alone in his room, he started to feel differently.

5:10And MacReady 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, sign 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.

5:54So 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.

6:40With 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.

7:01We'll be right back.

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9:49If I were living in New York in the 1830s and 40s, 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 to the people on the stage, responding to what it is that's going on. If you go to a more expensive theater, one that is catering more to 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.

10:34Popular 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.

11:25But Carl 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.

12:12There 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 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.

13:01So 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.

14:01And 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.

15:02They 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.

15:59One 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 McCready. William Charles McCready 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.

16:46He 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, MacReady 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.

17:36MacReady didn't see Forrest as competition because Carl 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 are 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 much more focused on passion and upon the inspiration of the moment.

18:17And certainly Forrest, in his acting style, while he 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. Carl Coppola writes that Forrest's dislike of high society partially came from his own insecurities.

19:03William McCready wrote in his diary that he liked Forrest. He wanted to be friends. Unlike some other British intellectuals, McCready 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, McCready 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.

19:45They 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.

20:26He 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. MacReady 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.

21:15And 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.

22:02But 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.

22:50The 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 son Forrest and the British MacReady. And the paper's opinions are largely divided by their readership. So working-class papers are championing Forrest 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.

23:36We'll be right back.

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25:03In 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. 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 McCready.

25:48The 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.

26:39Well, 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.

27:25But 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.

28:12But 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.