Once Arnold Daly and Bernard Shaw had got through their baptisms of fire in the transatlantic theatre of the 1890s, the circumstances for their future collaboration must have seemed propitious to them both. However, the Irish-American's inflexibility and the Anglo-Irishman's passion for control led to the fracturing of the relationship within the span of a few years in the first decade of the new century. The exposure of their work – in tandem in American vaudeville and later as competitors on the English variety stage – marked points of their disagreement and quirks in their difficult personalities as they scrambled for audiences who rarely appreciated them as much as both felt they deserved. Leigh Woods, Head of Theatre Studies at the University of Michigan, explores the breakdown of a partnership that launched one man on a course to oblivion and the other on a path to greater glory.