Title: Ethnic Cultures of the Mind: The Harrigan-Hart Mosaic
Abstract: the boisterous, sometimes raucous world of popular entertainment in Gilded Age New York, the comedy team of Green Harrigan and Tony Hart (Anthony J. Cannon) reigned supreme. Joining company in Chicago in 1868, the two itinerent troupers developed an act that ultimately resulted in a major popular culture phenomenon: a series of playswith-music, forebears of modern musical comedy, based on immigrant/ethnic themes and characters that purported to represent the reality of life in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Enormously successful from the onset of their New York career in 1872-73, and appealing to a wide spectrum of local society as well as to professional theatrical pundits, the team achieved a degree of popularity unmatched by any other individual performers or repertory companies of the day. No less a critic than William Dean Howells noted of Harrigan in 1886, In his province, we think he cannot be surpassed. Another contemporary observer, in a retrospective of Harrigan's career published in 1898, maintained that Edward Harrigan has occupied the most extraordinary position of any man who has lived in the theatrical world, in any country, at any time, so far as the records of the past and present show.1 And Hart, perhaps the most popular character actor working in New York between his debut and the time of his death in 1 89 1 , was a key element in the success of the company in performing the roles playwright Harrigan created for him. The Harrigan-Hart phenomenon commenced when the Merry Partners joined Tony Pastor's variety company in 1872-1873; then, for the next season, Josh Hart's Theatre Comique on lower Broadway. The New York alliance followed four years of itinerant work in which the two specialized in blackface minstrel bits as well as Irish and Dutch (German) character sketches.2 Follow-
Publication Year: 1992
Publication Date: 1992-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 10
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