Harrigan, Edward

Harrigan, Edward (1844–1911), actor, producer, librettist, and lyricist. Born in New York, where he originally apprenticed in the shipbuilding trade, he ran away from home and sailed to San Francisco. Although he had appeared briefly as a youngster with Campbell's Minstrels, Harrigan made his real debut in the burgeoning West Coast variety theatres, such as the Bella Union. After being teamed up with different comics, he met with Tony HART[né Anthony J. Cannon] (1855–91). Born into a poor Irish family in Worcester, Massachusetts, Hart apparently was the shortest member of the household and thus the butt of much unpleasant humor. His response was often so abusive that he was sent to reform school. He soon ran away, coming to New York, where he sang and danced for pennies in saloons, then performed with a circus and several minstrel troupes. While appearing with one in Chicago he met Harrigan. The fatherly or avuncular‐looking Harrigan, with his dry wit, and the almost femininely beautiful Hart, with his more rambunctious style, proved perfect foils. They quickly became one of vaudeville's most popular attractions. Harrigan wrote the sketches as well as the lyrics for their songs, which Harrigan's father‐in‐law, David Braham, set to music. Soon Harrigan began writing extended playlets, and these proved so popular that he eventually started expanding some. The pair took over the Theatre Comique, where at first the entertainments consisted of an olio followed by one of the playlets, but in time the latter continued to be so popular that Harrigan turned them into full‐length musicals. One of the earliest was The Mulligan Guards, a spoof of contemporary paramilitary groups that involved the adventures of Dan Mulligan, his wife, and son. Harrigan used the Mulligan family in many of his best works, including The Mulligan Guards' Ball (1879), The Mulligan Guards' Surprise (1880), The Mulligans' Silver Wedding (1880), and Cordelia's Aspirations (1883). Harrigan usually was Dan Mulligan while Hart played either the Mulligan son Tommy or the family's rambunctious black maid Rebecca; the latter was his most famous role. Harrigan peopled his plays largely with immigrant classes and spoofed not only the Irish but also the “Negroes,” Italians, Germans, and Jews. Among his other successes at this time were The Major (1881), Squatter Sovereignty (1882), and McSorley's Inflation (1882). Harrigan and Hart broke up following mutually recriminatory accusations after their theatre burned. Hart's subsequent roles included the desperate Isaac Roost in A Toy Pistol (1886) and the befuddled moonshiner Upton O. Dodge opposite Lillian Russell in The Maid and the Moonshiner (1886). His behavior, however, was becoming increasingly erratic and he was committed to a home, where he died of paresis. After the team separated, Harrigan's skills began to wane, although he enjoyed one final important success with Reilly and the Four Hundred (1890), with which he opened the new theatre he had built and named after himself. His last new work was The Woolen Stocking (1893). In later years he leased the theatre and acted intermittently in a few plays by other men. Harrigan's songs were among the most popular of his era. Hits such as “The Mulligan Guard March,” “The Babies on Our Block,” and “Maggie Murphy's Home” had widespread and long‐lasting vogues. His works presented working‐class life in relatively realistic, if comic, terms. The characters he created were richly developed and three‐dimensional, and their virtues and flaws were depicted consistently from one work to the next. At first Harrigan's works appealed only to regular theatregoers and were especially popular with newsboys and similar gallery gods of the time. Eventually, however, they attracted the notice and respect of leading critics and of writers such as William Dean Howells, whose praise gave the pieces a new cachet. Harrigan has been called both the Dickens and the Hogarth of 19th‐century American theatre, while Hart was considered one of the finest and most popular performers of his era. Biography: Ned Harrigan: From Corlear's Hook to Herald Square, Richard Moody, 1980.