Passing Performances : Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theater History

"Walt Whitman's reminiscences of the Bowery Theatre demonstrate the specifically masculine, working-class appeal that Forrest and his audience confirmed for each other. 'Recalling from that period the occasion of either Forrest or Booth, any good night at the old Bowery, pack'd from ceiling to pit with its audience mainly of alert, well-dress'd, full-blooded young and middle-aged men, the best average of American-born mechanics- the emotional nature of the whole mass arous'd by the power and magnetism of as mighty mimes as ever trod to stage [...]" (21).

Menken and Clare are usually mentioned in connection with each other.

"Two major American literary critics, William Dean Howells and James Gibbons Huneker, published widely read eulogies. Whether it was merely coincidental or wheter the Shuberts intentionally sought to exploit Ibsen's death, it certainly brought attention to their new star" (132).