Summary: In the first chapter of this series we recalled the earlydays of American playwright William Shakespeare and the buzz whichsurrounded the premiere of his historical dramas Saratoga and Julius Caesar as well as the work that went into writing his tragedy Macbeth. In this segment we’ll look back at Macbeth’s premiere and analyze someof Shakespeare’s first great stage comedies.

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Finding cast members for a new theatrical production is always a challenging task, but for William Shakespeare it was an especially difficult road to hoe when he started casting the major roles for his next major dramatic work, Macbeth. Even before a single scene had been rehearsed, the more superstitious elements of the New York theatrical world had begun to talk of the mysterious mishaps which had befallen the up-and-coming playwright en route home from Washington after the
end of Julius Caesar’s theatrical run in that city; afraid of meeting an unpleasant fate, many actors stayed away from the Macbeth auditions as if the theater were infected with some kind of lethal plague.

Even those who did show up for the auditions felt a certain degree of trepidation as they ventured onto the floorboards to begin their tryouts. Edwin Booth, brother of infamous assassin John Wilkes Booth, would recall in his autobiography feeling “ice-cold fingers of dread moving ing up his spine when he started to read the first lines for his test run as the King of Scotland; that feeling would stay with him until he left the theater to go home after his audition was complete. It was fortunate for Shakespeare-- and for American theater as a whole for that matter --that Booth was able to resist what was undoubtedly a powerful impulse to flee the stage in the middle of the audition, or else audiences might have been deprived of what has since come to be regarded as one of the greatest dramatic performances ever given on a theatrical stage in North America.

Having secured Booth’s services to portray the Scottish king in Macbeth, Shakespeare now set to work casting the title character. That proved a considerably tougher nut to crack, as there weren’t too many actors in New York at the time who could convincingly pull off the kind of regal yet pathetic tones necessary for portraying the role of the ethically tortured, ambition-besotted Macbeth; even after that problem was resolved, there was still the small but critical matter of
trying to stamp out the rumors that the production was jinxed.

The title part in Macbeth went to Maurice Barrymore, an India-born surveyor’s son who would later be remembered as the founder of the legendary Barrymore theatrical family. Barrymore nailed his audition for the role; indeed, some of the other actors who’d shown up to try out for the part of Macbeth were said to have quit the audition on the spot knowing that they had little chance of beating him for the coveted spot in Shakespeare’s cast. He was not in the least deterred by the sinister rumors of supernatural forces trying to sabotage the presentation of Shakespeare’s latest dramatic work-- in fact, some of Barrymore’s biographers have gone so far as to suggest that those rumors might have been the very thing enticing him to try out for Macbeth’s title part in the first place.

The most notable thing about Macbeth-- aside from the ghostly legends surrounding it --was that it marked the first time in William Shakespeare’s theatrical career his wife Anne wasn’t in attendance for the first rehearsal of one of his plays. Several popular rumors which circulated around the New York theatrical community at the time had it that Anne had chosen to avoid the rehearsal because she was afraid of falling victim to dark supernatural entities. Anne herself was quick to dispute such notions, saying her absence had actually been caused by a passing bout of stomach flu.

By now Shakespeare was a fairly well-known figure in Eastern theatrical circles, and he’d started to attract his share of admirers in other parts of America too. So despite the controversy about the alleged supernatural cloud hanging over Macbeth, there wasn’t much of a problem getting seats filled for the play’s debut. Some scholars of American theatrical history have even suggested the uproar may have helped ticket sales by fanning public curiosity about “the Scottish play”.

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In any case, the Shubert Theater in Manhattan was packed to the gills when the curtain went up for Macbeth’s premiere. Hundreds of people actually had to be turned away from the performance since every available seat in the theater had been taken. Even being a VIP was no assurance that one could get in to the premiere; the New York City police commissioner was dismayed when he was informed that there were no balcony seats available for the debut performance of Macbeth.
The national magazines of the day were generously represented in the audience-- Harper’s Weekly alone boasted three correspondents and a sketch artist in attendance that evening.

No supernatural troubles bothered the cast and crew that evening-- at least as far as the public record shows --but there were plenty of earthly problems for Shakespeare and company to deal with. Police had to arrest at least three disgruntled would-be patrons who tried to force their way inside the theater after their tickets had already been refused, and a member of Macbeth’s supporting cast nearly didn’t make it to the theater because of a carriage accident blocking
one of the main streets leading to the Shubert. Shakespeare himself, meanwhile, suffered a brief bout of dizziness right before the first act intermission and considered calling for a doctor if the symptoms got worse.

But America’s Bard ultimately decided to tough it out, and was rewarded for his endurance with a twenty-minute ovation when the final curtain came out on Macbeth’s opening night performance. The Scottish play had started to earn a firm foothold in the minds and hearts of American theater aficionados. By the time of Shakespeare’s death, some theater critics would regard Macbeth as the greatest dramatic work of his career...

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....yet when it came time for him to write a follow-up to that play, he surprised those who’d expected him to create another dramatic vehicle by choosing instead to turn his hand to much lighter fare. Out of his experiences of growing up in Stratford in the 1860s he crafted his first great comedic work, The Merry Wives Of Windsor Avenue. Like many other humorists and satirists since the days of the Roman Empire, Shakespeare found in the everyday housewife a rich source of material
for his send-ups of human folly and provincialism. Along with Macbeth,Windsor has prompted numerous accusations by radical feminists against Shakespeare that his plays were written from a misogynist mindset, and with just as little evidence to back up such accusations. Indeed, some critics argue that if anything Windsor is one of the anti-male plays ever produced in English-speaking theater-- especially when performed in the politically correct versions that have become popular in recent years on American college campuses.

In any case Windsor earned Shakespeare his first plaudits as an author of comedic works. Many of the critics who reviewed the play in its initial theatrical run were especially fond of the verbal jousting between the lead wife and the town butcher midway through Act 2. They weren’t alone on that score; theater audiences roared at these lines and were fond of quoting them once they left the show. From there, it was just a matter of time before the wife-butcher argument became an
integral part of American dramatic history. To this day theater arts majors still use it in workshops on theatrical dialogue, and over the decades since Windsor made its stage debut the scene has been invoked in every other entertainment medium from radio to online role-playing.

In October of 1889, just after Windsor finished its initial Broadway run, Shakespeare received a telegram from a certain well- known London theatrical impresario expressing an interest in producingJulius Caesar at the Royal Albert Hall. The telegram’s author had been inspired to make the offer after being told about the play by a mutual acquaintance in Boston who had seen Caesar shortly after it opened in that city and been greatly impressed by its story and performances. As far as Shakespeare was concerned, the London impresario’s offer meant more than just expanding the audience for his works-- it also offered a chance to fulfill a lifelong dream of visiting the English village from which his ancestors had first emigrated to the New World back in the late 16th century. After conferring with his wife about the idea, Shakespeare wasted little time before sending a reply telegram back to London saying he’d be extremely interested in staging Caesar before a Royal Albert Hall audience. Within a week, the couple had their bags packed and were on a steamer bound for Liverpool; once they arrived in England, a train would bear them from Liverpool to London, where the man sponsoring the London production of Caesar had arranged for them to stay in a suite at one of the city’s finest hotels.

Shakespeare spent much of his journey to England working on the first draft of his next great comedic play, A Midsummer Night’s Fancy.Midsummer was the Connecticut playwright’s first venture into outright fantasy; up to that point his previous scripts(even Macbeth, its three witches notwithstanding) had been grounded largely in realism to make it easier for his audiences to relate to them. This new script was an adventure into uncharted waters for America’s Bard-- particular where its budget was concerned. Midsummer promised to be the most expensive theatrical production Shakespeare had yet attempted, with or without a wealthy London stage producer helping to sponsor it. For a 21st-century playgoer, living in an era when gargantuan costume and special effects budgets are the rule rather than the exception and a typical Broadway director can command salaries greater than the personal fortunes of J. Paul Getty and Howard Hughes combined, the fuss can seem a bit quaint. But at the time it felt like nothing less than the future of dramatic arts was riding on the success or failure of the new play’s debut-- to say nothing of how much Shakespeare’s future as a writer and a person hinged on whether British audiences embraced Caesar as readily as had their American brethren.

Midsummer told the story of two seemingly mismatched lovers who were in fact perfect for each but stubbornly refused to concede that point; the couple were eventually brought to their senses through the intervention of a hidden retinue of fairies that also doubled as the play’s Greek chorus. In hindsight it’s easy to suggest this play had the makings of a guaranteed smash; from the immediate perspective of some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, however, it looked as it he was playing with fire. At least one New York critic well-acquainted with America’s Bard both professionally and personally warned him that if Midsummer failed at the box office it could potentially constitute the worst setback of his career. For that matter, there was plenty riding on the success or failure of Caesar’s first London run...