Photo: wikimedia/NYPL Digital Gallery
It is not uncommon for me to be accused of evading actual social problems with my distant observations on the fine arts, especially when they are based on the old bard Shakespeare, who has been lying underground for a good 400 years. Well, everything he wrote was politics. But unfortunately people love the all too superficial.
After all, I then say, the riot that went down in history as the Astor Place Riot occurred 175 years ago in New York. Shakespeare, the sparker of social unrest. You know. No?
Genosse Shakespeare
As you like it: Every two weeks, Erik Zielke writes about great tragedies, political smear theater and fools from the past and present. He finds inspiration in his comrade from Stratford-upon-Avon.
You can find all columns here.
In New York, where entertainment venues dominated the cityscape even back then, the American Edwin Forrest was considered one of the great Shakespeare actors. Forrest enjoyed immense popularity, particularly among the working class. Because back then it was true: art belongs to the people! And Shakespeare was the creator of a new popular theater.
The Briton William Macready was no less famous as an actor who had also rendered great service to Shakespeare. However, he was primarily revered by the wealthy upper class. Shakespeare, even back then, could mean elite high culture.
Now it happened, it was 1849, that both actors were supposed to play Macbeth in the east coast metropolis at the same time. Forrest in the great Broadway Theater, Macready, not far away, in the Astor Place Opera. When the latter was about to give his first performance, 20,000 workers rebelled in front of the theater gates before storming the stage hall. The mime could only escape the pack – he was practiced at this – in costume.
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As the masses prepared to reduce the cultural temple to ashes, the National Guard moved in, did not hold back and killed 25 insurgents. 120 were injured. There is a rumor that because of these events in the English-speaking world people do not call “Macbeth” by its title, but rather refer to it as the “Scottish play” in order not to provoke disaster.
And today in the Netflix age, a few days before the next horror election overseas? One can imagine that Kamala Harris would have jetted to London to see William Macready’s performance of “Macbeth” and have a nice evening with her friends from the elite club, but would have sold the whole thing to the electorate as an expression of her progressive internationalism.
Trump, on the other hand, would have tried to exploit the 20,000 insurgents, New York’s left behind. Even legitimate anger can be channeled in the worst possible ways. Yesterday it hit a theater, tomorrow it could be against Puerto Ricans. In case of doubt, as soon as the crowd proved uncontrollable, he would have led the National Guard himself and released the people for shooting.