William Charles Macready

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William Charles Macready

William Charles Macready (born March 3, 1793 in London , † April 27, 1873 in Cheltenham ) was an English actor .

Life

Macready was the son of a tenant of several smaller theaters. Macready received his education at the school in rugby . Then Macready was to study at Oxford University . Due to financial difficulties of his father this broke up and he joined the theater company of his father. On June 7, 1810, he was able to debut at the City Theater of Birmingham as Orestes in the tragedy "The distrest Mother" ( Ambrose Philips ); an adaptation of Jean Racine's Andromaque .

On the occasion of a dispute over the financial situation Macready left his father's ensemble in 1814 and was then hired to a theater in Dublin . Macready's acting skills were based on models like Edmund Kean John Philip Kemble , but soon found their own distinctive style.

Macready achieved his artistic breakthrough in 1818 in the leading role of Isaac Pocock's Rob Roy ; a dramatization of Walter Scott 's novel of the same name.

Macready later moved to the City Theater of Edinburgh and in 1816 he was engaged at the Royal Opera House ( Covent Garden ). From 1823 he was seen at the Drurylane Theater . That year Macready married Catherine Frances Atkins in London and had several children with her.

In addition to important plays by Shakespeare, Macready also appeared in other plays; for example, he starred in James Sheridan Knowles ' William Tell on May 11, 1825 . In the spring of 1826 Macready made a tour to the USA and in 1828 a longer tour to Paris .

Macready as 'Macbeth'

Between 1837 and 1839 Macready was entrusted with the management of Covent Garden and in 1841 he took over the management of the Drury Lane Theater for two years. As a theater director, Macready was instrumental in saving Shakespeare's drama. He worked with the original texts as far as he could and had great success as an actor with Shakespeare. Hamlet , Lear and Macbeth were his greatest successes during these years.

He also campaigned for the modernization of English drama and brought Robert Browning's Strafford to the stage as early as 1837 . The following year he directed Bulwer's Lady of Lyons and Richelieu . On June 10, 1838, Macready gave Shakespeare's Henry V. The painter Clarkson Stanfield created the sets and the first performance was attended by Edward Bulwer-Lytton , Charles Dickens , John Forster , Daniel Maclise and William Johnson Fox and other friends of Macreadys and Stanfield.

A second tour to New York followed in 1843 and a third in 1848/49. There Macready could also achieve great success with Shakespeare characters, but this earned him the bitter hostility of the actor Edwin Forrest . He staged a scandal on the occasion of a performance by Macready in 1849 at the Astor Opera House . Together with friends, Forrest disrupted this theater performance, which quickly turned into tumultuous fights. These grew out of place and in the end there were more than 20 dead. This event is still known today as the Astor Place Riot .

On his return Macready performed again at the Drury Lane Theater.

On February 26, 1851, he gave his farewell performance there with “Macbeth”. He withdrew into private life. In 1852 his wife Catherine died. In the following years Macready worked on Shakespeare texts and married Cecile Louis Spencer in Cheltenham in 1860 and had a son with her; the later General Nevil Macready . William Charles Macready died on April 27, 1873, a week before his 80th birthday.

The actor George Macready (1899-1973) claimed to be also a descendant of William Charles Macreadys.

Roles (selection)

Works

  • The diaries of William Charles Macready . Blom Books, New York 1969 (repr. Of the London 1912 edition)

literature

  • Macready and the classical theater in England . In: Illustrirte Zeitung . No. 16 . J. J. Weber, Leipzig October 14, 1843, p. 253-255 ( books.google.de ).
  • George H. Lewes: About Actors and Drama. Duncker, Leipzig 1878.
  • Henry B. Baker: English actors from Shakespear to Macready. 2 volumes. Holt, New York 1879.
  • William Archer : William Charles Macready. Paul, London 1890.
  • John Westland Marston : Our recent actors. Sampson Low, London 1890.
  • Juliet Pollock. Macready, as I knew him. Remington, London 1890.
  • Abraham J. Bassett: The actor-manager career of William Charles Macready. Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1962.
  • Alan S. Downer: The eminent tragedian William Charles Macready. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1966.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Macready, William Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English actor
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1793
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1873
Place of death Cheltenham , England