On May 10,1849; 22 people were killed by state militia troops just outside of the Astor Place Opera House. The riot was the cause of a great rivalry between two Shakespearean actors, one of them being; Englishmen, William Charles Macready and the other being; American, Edwin Forrest. This rivalry started during one of Macready’s tours through England in the 1830’s. Edwin Forrest attended one of Macready’s performances and hissed at Macready while he was on stage. This was considered to be very rude at the time so a big scandal was made of it. In the end Macready ended up forgetting about it; however, the rivalry continued on throughout both of these actors’ lives.

Since Shakespeare was so popular during this time his work influenced a lot of people’s opinions on politics and life in general. For this reason the rivalry between Macready and Forrest influenced their fans. Macready was considered to represent the upper middle class and high class people of the time while Forrest represented the average working class American people. It was the hatred between these two classes that the Astor Place Riot occurred.

On May 7, 1849 Macready, (who was on his last tour in America because he was going to retire from acting) was set to perform a world famous play entitled: Macbeth, by William Shakespeare. The performance was scheduled to take place in the greatest opera house in New York; the Astor Place Opera House, little did Macready know; over twenty working class citizens had purchased tickets for his show later that night. Fast forward to the beginning of Macready’s performance of Macbeth; as Macready is walking out on stage the Edwin Forrest supporters started slowly and steadily stomping on the ground. Of course the action of stomping on the ground creates a low rumbling sound so that Macready had a hard time performing his soliloquy. But Macready still decided to keep performing over top of the noise. This made the people mad so they started hissing and booing him, making it very hard to continue on through his performance. Towards the end of the performance the people started throwing food and drinks at Macready so he decided not to finish the performance and walked off stage where he escaped through a back door to get away from the theatre. He later said that he would not continue his tour throughout America and immediately return to his home in England never to return to America. Soon after the announcement a petition was signed by 47 people that convinced Macready to try and perform Macbeth once again. People started putting up posters advertising Macready’s performance this was soon followed by other people putting up posters advertising Forrest’s performance of the play: “Gladiator,” at a theatre across town from the Astor Place Opera House.

When it came time for the Opera House to open police had already shown up expecting that something was going to happen.  The police only allowed ticket holders inside so there would be no trouble. After everyone had gone inside, had taken their seats and the show was about to begin, they shut the doors, barricaded them and also barricaded the windows. After the show began a crowd of around 10,000 to 15,000 people had formed outside of the Opera House. Almost immediately the crowd became restless and started getting violent by throwing stones at the Opera House and knocking down street lights. When the police got worried about an attack on Macready himself they started arresting a few of the crowd members as a warning to the other rioters. But instead of calming the crowd down they are incited even further and they became even more violent. Meanwhile in the Opera House; Macready decides to leave the stage and leave his performance incomplete. He supposedly sneaks out a back entry way disguised as a police officer on horseback. The rioters eventually got so angry and so violent the commanding officer of police gives the order to fire blank rounds over the crowds head hoping to scare them off.  But because the crowd realizes the rounds are only blanks things just become even more out of control. Eventually the crowd got so bad the order was given to fire at rioters point blank. Even though the officers did carry out the orders, they did so unwillingly and shot at them low so they would only injure and not kill. Once the dust had settled casualties were reported at; 22 and over 100 more were injured, including officers hit by stones. There was still some bad blood however and protests started the day after the massacre which included bonfires and still more riots broke out, but none as severe as the Astor Place riot.

Macready decided not to continue his tour through America but instead got back to England as soon as possible so he could finish his last tour there. He retired his role of Macbeth in 1851 and then died 22 years later. This quote from William Shakespeare sums up the end of Macready’s life quite well: “And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

Forrest however had his reputation tarnished by this whole event and ended up filing for a divorce against his wife. He spent his last days in his mansion where he died only a couple of months before Macready.  The gloomy end to Forrest’s life reminds me of Macbeth, ironically the great Shakespearean play that his rival performed so well.