Edward Harrigan
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Edward Harrigan (October 26, 1844 – June 6, 1911) was an
Early years
Harrigan was born at
After Harrigan's parents divorced when he was 18, he worked at caulking ships, and his work eventually took him to San Francisco. As a pastime, he wrote new lyrics to existing melodies, and the result found popularity with his fellow workers.[1]
Harrigan and Hart partnership
Harrigan made his first stage appearance in 1867 at the Olympic,[1] a San Francisco "melodeon", as that city's variety theaters were then known. A brief partnership with comic Sam Rickey was followed by a fourteen-year stage career with Tony Hart, whom he met in Chicago in 1870. Although Harrigan wrote the lyrics and stage patter, the diminutive Hart's charm and singing talent played a large role in the duo's success.
Harrigan and Hart went in 1871 to Boston, where they had their first big success at John Stetson's Howard Athenaeum.[1] They then moved on to New York, where they first worked with Tony Pastor before beginning a long run at Josh Hart's Theatre Comique. By the mid-1870s they began moving from the variety show toward musical theatre. Harrigan's sketches on the Comique's crowded bill featured comic Irish, German and black characters drawn from everyday life on the streets of New York.[2] Their breakthrough hit was the 1873 song and sketch "The Mulligan Guard", a lampoon of an Irish neighborhood "militia" with music by David Braham, who would become Harrigan's musical director and father in law. It became their signature piece, and they featured it in many of their slapstick skits and plays.[3] In 1876, Harrigan took over the Comique himself, along with Hart and manager Martin Hanley.
By 1878, with The Mulligan Guard Picnic, Harrigan & Hart settled down on Broadway and performed in seventeen of their shows over the next seven years.[4] Though still broad and farcical, these shows featured music that was integrated with a more literary story line, together with the dialogue and dance, and the shows began to resemble modern musical comedy. Harrigan wrote the stories and lyrics, and Braham wrote the music.
Although the plays gradually became longer as more songs, dances, and stage business was added, the tickets remained the same price. Harrigan and Hart's comedy was about everyday people, and so it was fitting that working folk were able to afford to fill up the seats. These shows were very popular, especially with New York's immigrant-based lower and middle classes, who were delighted to see themselves comically (but sympathetically) depicted on stage. The action of the plays took place in downtown Manhattan and concerned real-life problems, such as interracial tensions, political corruption, and gang violence, all mixed with broad, street-smart comedy, puns and ethnic dialects. Harrigan played the politically ambitious Irish saloon owner "Dan Mulligan", and Hart played the
One of Harrigan's most popular plays with the Mulligan Guard Series, the Mulligan Guard's Ball (1880), shows off the smooth juxtaposition of the comedy, musicality, and a healthy dose of humanity that made Harrigan's plays so distinctive. Full of laughable chaos and "Harrigan hilarity", the Irish militia and Black militia within the act butt heads in a satirical whirlwind of dance, stage violence, and buffoonery.[5][page needed] The New York Herald compared the Mulligan series to the Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, and one devotee wrote: "America has produced nothing more national, more distinctly its own, than these plays of the Irish in New York".[5][page needed] People spoke of Ned Harrigan as the American Molière.[6][page needed]
Although the Theatre Comique was eventually shut down for financial reasons, Harrigan announced in 1881 that they would build a fresh and elegant "
Marriage and decline
After the theatre collapsed, so did the partnership. Harrigan had married Annie Braham, David's daughter, on November 18, 1876. Their family continued in his footsteps, as son William Harrigan, daughter Nedda Harrigan, and granddaughter Ann Connolly all became Broadway performers. However, Harrigan's habit of hiring relatives soured his partnership with Hart. In May 1885, five months after the fire, Harrigan and Hart appeared on Broadway together for the last time. Hart's health deteriorated, and he died at age 36 in 1891,[3] while Harrigan opened up his Harrigan's Theatre in 1890 on Herald Square. Twenty-three of his plays achieved runs of more than 100 performances each on Broadway. Harrigan continued writing plays and performing until his last public appearance on March 16, 1910.
Harrigan died in 1911.[5][page needed]
Harrigan 'n Hart
In 1985, a musical celebrating the partnership,
Works
- 1877: Old Lavender
- 1878: The Mulligan Guard Picnic
- 1879: The Mulligan Guards' Ball
- 1880: The Mulligan Guards' Surprise which included the hit song "Whist! The Bogie Man" words by Harrigan and music by David Braham.
- 1881: The Major
- 1882: Squatter Sovereignty
- 1883: The Mulligans' Silver Wedding
- 1883: Cordelia's Aspirations
- 1886: The Leather Patch
- 1888: Waddy Googan
- 1890: Reilly and the Four Hundred
Notes
- ^ a b c d Cullen, p. 484
- ^ Chase, p. 365
- ^ a b "Tony Hart", Internet Accuracy Project, accessed October 1, 2014
- ^ Kenrick, John. "Who's Who in Musicals: Hale-Harris", Musicals101.com
- ^ a b c Moody, Richard. Ned Harrigan: From Corlear's Hook to Herald Square. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Inc., Publishers, 1980.
- ^ Cullen, passim
- ^ Kahn Jr., E. J. The Merry Partners: The Act and Stage of Harrigan and Hart. New York: Random House, Inc., 1955
- ^ Greenleaf, pp. 375–76; and "New Theatre Comique", Internet Broadway Database
- ^ Rich, Frank. "Stage: Harrigan 'n Hart Opens at the Longacre", The New York Times, February 1, 1985, accessed October 1, 2014
- ^ Harrigan 'n Hart, Internet Broadway Database, accessed October 1, 2014
References
- Chase, Gilbert (2000). America's Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-00454-X.
- Frank Cullen; Florence Hackman; Donald McNeilly (2007). Vaudeville, Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2.
- Greenleaf, Jonathan A History of the Churches, of All Denominations, in the City of New York (New York: E. French, 1846)
- Kahn, E.J. (1955) The Merry Partners: The Age and Stage of Harrigan and Hart (Random House). Biography of Harrigan and Hart.
- Moody, Richard. (1980) Ned Harrigan - From Corlear's Hook to Herald Square. (Chicago: Nelson Hall)
Further reading
- Dormon, James H. "Ethnic Cultures of the Mind: The Harrigan-Hart Mosaic." American Studies Fall 1992: 21–40. JSTOR. Web. 8 March. 2013.
- Finson, Jon W., ed. (1997). Collected Songs, 1873–1896. Music of the United States of America (MUSA) vol. 7. Madison, Wisconsin: A-R Editions.
External links
- Edward Harrigan at the Internet Broadway Database
- Edward Harrigan biography
- Profile of Harrigan[permanent dead link]
- Harrigan and Braham Archived 2013-12-22 at the Wayback Machine at Music of the United States of America (MUSA)
- Edward Harrigan papers, 1871–1984, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
- Edward Harrigan papers, circa 1870–1908, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library
- Ned Harrigan - Internet Accuracy Project
- Collected songs of Edward Harrigan and David Braham
- Photo of Harrigan and Hart
- Harrigan and Hart in the 1870s and 1880s, Brown University
- Harrigan and Hart Archived 2012-12-12 at the Wayback Machine, Ashland Elks Lodge