New York Classics

Their Tribulations, Triumphs, and Their Associates

Felix Isman

• Publisher: Excelsior Editions
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781438490533
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Joe Weber and Lew Fields were the dominant musical comedy team at the turn of the last century. They created classic comedic characters and routines and formed their own theatrical troupe, running a theater in New York for many years where they produced successful revues that combined music, dance, and song. So famous were they in their time that they inspired a full-length biography by a major publisher. Weber and Fields follows the duo from their childhood on New York's rough-and-tumble Lower East Side to the creation of their best-known characters, the Dutch knockabout comedians Mike and Myer, and continues with the opening of their own theater in 1896 (with landmark productions through 1904) to their reunion in 1912. This new edition brings an out-of-print classic to a new generation of theater loves. A new introduction by Ken Bloom carries the story through the rest of their careers, showing how Weber and Fields set the stage for comic duos that followed, including Mutt and Jeff of comic book fame, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Rowan and Martin, and countless others.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• New Introduction
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• Chapter I Rough Beginnings: Youth through Teen Years
• Chapter II “A Jolly Pair”: Breaking In and First Road Trips, Early 1880s
• Chapter III Mike and Myer Are Born: Hitting the Road, the Mid-1880s
• Chapter IV On the Road: Circus and Variety Days, 1887–1896
• Chapter V A New Theater, a First Season: “The Geezer,” “Under the Red Globe,” and “Mr. New York, Esquire,” 1896–1897
• Chapter VI The Second and Third Seasons: “The Con Curers,” “Catherine,” and “Helter Skelter,” 1897–1899
• Chapter VII The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Seasons: And “Whirl-i-Gig” and “Hoity Toity,” 1899–1901
• Chapter VIII The Seventh and Eighth Seasons: An Ending and Then a Reunion, 1902–1904, 1912
• Back Cover