The Actors' Rivalry

HEATHER NATHANS: Forrest certainly has followers who are interested in defending him when the cause is presented to them as British versus American. How can we let our own homegrown star be disgraced by these imported stars?

But the rivalry between Macready and Forrest is a long-standing one. And Forrest had gone to see Macready's performances in London and England and had behaved very badly, had hissed him publicly, which is just a thing you don't do. It's unprofessional. And had claimed that, "Oh well, he felt free to comment on the performance," etcetera.

And Macready wrote in his diaries about finding this irritating and trivial and annoying and not really understanding what it was about. But it really pointed out, I think, for the people that were susceptible to this kind of presentation of it—the difference between sort of American, honest American, passion, and British emotional coldness and withdrawal.

And Macready has his sort of little posse as well, and I think it's Washington Irving who is one of the people that encourages Macready, "Don't retreat. We'll back you! We will support you."

And then they don't have any sense that this is going to escalate into a riot, that this is really going to become dangerous. But it's one of those wonderful moments where theater actually becomes this kind of focal point for showing just how far the society has split.