Speaker 1: Pushkin, Hey, last Archive listeners. This week, we're sharing a
Speaker 1: preview of another Pushkin show, Where There's a Will, which
Speaker 1: searches for the surprising places Shakespeare shows up. Outside the theater,
Speaker 1: You'll hear Shakespeare doing rehabilitative work in a maximum security prison,
Speaker 1: helping autistic kids to communicate, shaping religious observances even in
Speaker 1: the oval office. Uncovered the way Shakespeare endures in our
Speaker 1: modern society and what that says about us. In this preview,
Speaker 1: the year is eighteen forty nine and a riot at
Speaker 1: a Shakespearean theater has left dozens of people dead. But
Speaker 1: as always with Shakespeare, there's more here than meets the eye.
Speaker 1: Why did some people think he was important enough to
Speaker 1: die for? How did the work of one man writing
Speaker 1: in Victorian England capture the tensions brewing in a newly
Speaker 1: independent America? And who, if anyone, is Shakespeare really for? Okay,
Speaker 1: here comes the episode you can find Where There's a
Speaker 1: Will wherever you get your podcasts. If I asked you
Speaker 1: to close your eyes and tell me what Shakespeare sounds
Speaker 1: like in your mind, what kind of sound would you
Speaker 1: hear tapping of a pen on a paper? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just like thinking of, you know, in the scribble of
Speaker 1: like an old fountain pen, writing like it's very sharp sounding.
Speaker 1: And if someone were speaking his lines, what would they
Speaker 1: sound like to you? I feel like he would have
Speaker 1: an English accent. Yeah, probably English was even English. He
Speaker 1: was English, Okay, yeah, not American. Wouldn't sound America, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it could have been like super proper English,
Speaker 1: like what an english Man would say, like a scholar.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine a time in America where people would
Speaker 1: be willing to die over Shakespeare? I believe in disagreement.
Speaker 1: I think it's a good thing. I think people should
Speaker 1: test their views and talk to other people and so on.
Speaker 1: So violence we draw the line, not violent, not violence.
Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine that, you know, art could inspire
Speaker 1: people to violence like that. It's true there was a
Speaker 1: time in America when Shakespeare was important enough to die
Speaker 1: for the year eighteen forty nine. America has been independent
Speaker 1: for less than a century. The place New York City
Speaker 1: than just like now. It's the great melting pot of
Speaker 1: American life. English culture still looms large, especially in upper
Speaker 1: class New York. But there's also a huge Irish population,
Speaker 1: heavily working class, and they loathe the English and everything
Speaker 1: they represent. Theater is the popular art form of the day.
Speaker 1: Rich people, poor people, refine rough Everybody loves to go
Speaker 1: see a performance, and there's a lot of Shakespeare for sure. Downtown.
Speaker 1: The greatest American actor of the day is at work.
Speaker 1: His name is Edwin Forrest. He was born in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: just like the country, and he's a living, breathing symbol
Speaker 1: of the American spirit. He's big and handsome, athletic and virile,
Speaker 1: and he's famous for a physical acting style that people
Speaker 1: find unbelievably lifelike. Forrest is in residence playing Shakespeare and
Speaker 1: other roles at the Broadway Theater on New York's lowery Side.
Speaker 1: He's famous for his Macbeth. Is this a dagger which
Speaker 1: I see before me? The handle toward my hand? Come?
Speaker 1: Let me clutch thee? A few blocks north, the Astor
Speaker 1: Place Opera House is waiting for a Macbeth of its own.
Speaker 1: The famous English actor William Charles McCready is on an
Speaker 1: international tour, and he happens to be Forest's greatest rival.
Speaker 1: McCready is everything Forest is not classical, elegant, a little fragile,
Speaker 1: a little effeet pity like a naked new ball. Babe
Speaker 1: shall breath the horrid deed, and every DearS shall drown
Speaker 1: the wind. He's got a following two, the uptown crowd,
Speaker 1: and certainly not Forest's Irish fan base. The opera house
Speaker 1: is brand new, its tickets are really pricey, and its
Speaker 1: vibe is deliberately poshed. It's intended for the Tufts, the
Speaker 1: upper class New Yorkers who are ritzier than the folks
Speaker 1: on Lower Broadway. McCready is known for his Hamlet, and
Speaker 1: for one moment of it, in particular, at the point
Speaker 1: in the play when Hamlet announces that he's going to
Speaker 1: feign madness, McCready takes out a big handkerchief and he
Speaker 1: does this crazy dance. English audiences go nuts. Forest sails
Speaker 1: to England to see it, and he gets himself a
Speaker 1: prime seat at McCready's theater. When the handkerchief dance comes along,
Speaker 1: Forrest stands up and he starts hissing loud. The feud
Speaker 1: is on. It is a tale told by an idiot
Speaker 1: toned by any sound and fury. Signify signify. I'm Barry Edelstein,
Speaker 1: Artistic director of the Old Globe in San Diego, one
Speaker 1: of the countries leading Shakespeare theaters, and this is where
Speaker 1: there's a will finding Shakespeare from the globe and pushkin industries.
Speaker 1: Our show discovers Shakespeare in all sorts of unexpected places
Speaker 1: and asks what he's doing there and what his presence
Speaker 1: means about him and about us. My companion on this
Speaker 1: search for Old William is a friend and colleague with
Speaker 1: their own deep interest in Shakespeare, m Weinstein. M's a
Speaker 1: director and writer who works on television and film and stage,
Speaker 1: and Shakespeare has been a big part of their life.
Speaker 1: Hey Am, hey Barry, thanks for having me. This Forest
Speaker 1: McCready rivalry is really juicy stuff. People don't know much
Speaker 1: about it or about how much Shakespeare meant at that time.
Speaker 1: So the forest and McCready thing gets it. Something that's
Speaker 1: been a theme through my thirty year career working on
Speaker 1: Shakespeare in America, something that you and I have discussed
Speaker 1: a lot, and that is the notion that there is
Speaker 1: such a thing as an American Shakespeare, and that American
Speaker 1: Shakespeare has a purity and a truth and a power
Speaker 1: all its own. I'm right there with you, Berry, and
Speaker 1: that notion isn't unique to us or to our moment
Speaker 1: in American culture. It feels like theatermakers started searching for
Speaker 1: it from the very time that this country was born.
Speaker 1: But up until Edwin Forrest in the eighteen forties, no
Speaker 1: single artist had planted the stars and stripes so deep
Speaker 1: into the complete works of Shakespeare. And in a way,
Speaker 1: he kind of changed the game, right. He invented an
Speaker 1: acting style that somehow managed to express this country and
Speaker 1: its energy and its values. He did, but ironically, he
Speaker 1: discovered that there was no writer who allowed him to
Speaker 1: be more American than William Shakespeare. It's so fascinating, Okay,
Speaker 1: But back to the story. So Forrest went to England
Speaker 1: to hiss at McCready, and now they're both playing Shakespeare
Speaker 1: in New York within blocks of each other. Okay, So
Speaker 1: Forrest's fans buy up a block of seats at astor place,
Speaker 1: and when McCready starts to perform, they interrupt him, throwing
Speaker 1: vegetables and screaming. The violence starts to get out of hand,
Speaker 1: and patrons run out of the theater. Outside they bang
Speaker 1: into more a Forest's crew who've marched up from downtown.
Speaker 1: They're throwing rocks that they've grabbed from a quarry nearby
Speaker 1: windows shatter. The chaos escalates. Ten thousand people are jammed
Speaker 1: into this one tight section of Lower Manhattan. The situation
Speaker 1: gets so volatile that National Guard troops pour onto the scene.
Speaker 1: They fire warning shots, but they don't help, so they
Speaker 1: open fire on the Crown. People fall, There's blood the
Speaker 1: times over. Dozens of people are injured and twenty two
Speaker 1: are dead in the streets. It's the worst riot in
Speaker 1: the young country's history, and its centers on whether or
Speaker 1: not Shakespeare is American. M It's an amazing story, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's wild and it's crazy to me that, even though
Speaker 1: it was a total cataclysm one hundred and seventy five
Speaker 1: years ago, the Aster Place riots kind of forgotten today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the interview clips that open this episode or proof of that,
Speaker 1: we recorded them on Aster Place. And if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: the only living legacy of the riot is the New
Speaker 1: York City's mayor at the time ordered the police department
Speaker 1: to permanently arm itself as a cautionary measure. The force
Speaker 1: that patrols the streets of the Big Apple today can
Speaker 1: trace its considerable firepower directly to a dispute over Macbeth
Speaker 1: that is absolutely true. But Edwin Forrest's legacy lives on,
Speaker 1: and that is what I want to explore in this
Speaker 1: episode of Where There's a Will. Every actor who speaks
Speaker 1: Iambic pentameter on the stage of The Old Globe or
Speaker 1: any other Shakespeare's age in this country is a direct
Speaker 1: descendant of Forest and m As you know, for actors
Speaker 1: in Shakespeare, being American is a thing. Just like Forrest
Speaker 1: was told by the establishment that no matter what he did,
Speaker 1: McCready would always be better at Shakespeare because he was English.
Speaker 1: So his descendants in our era hear the same thing.
Speaker 1: When I started my career in Shakespeare thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: i heard it American Shakespeare was less than Shakespeare was English.
Speaker 1: His stories are English, his references are London and Warwickshire.
Speaker 1: The English just do him better. Oh totally. I mean
Speaker 1: I had Shakespeare teachers who spoke in a British accent
Speaker 1: even though they're from America. I mean I had actors
Speaker 1: show up on first days of rehearsal doing sort of
Speaker 1: elevated British accents. I'm fascinated by how these old prejudices
Speaker 1: continue to resonate through our theater, in our acting culture.
Speaker 1: Even in our thinking about Shakespeare Old Globe. The theater
Speaker 1: I run has a professional actor training conservatory, and its
Speaker 1: mission is to nurture the Edwin forests of tomorrow. I
Speaker 1: had a conversation with the director of our program and
Speaker 1: with one of his wonderful students about how they connect
Speaker 1: their americanness to Shakespeare. We'll get to their stories after
Speaker 1: a quick break