Cordelia's Aspirations

Cordelia's Aspirations (1883), a play with music by Edward Harrigan (book, lyrics), David Braham (music). [Theatre Comique, 176 perf.] When Cordelia Mulligan's jealous brother and sisters arrive in America, they are quick to plant seeds of ambition and discontent in her fertile mind. Before long Cordelia (Annie Yeamans) has forced her husband, Dan (Harrigan), to leave their happy old home and to move uptown where Dan's easy, comfortable life gives way to Cordelia's starchy pretensions. Cordelia's brother Planxty (H. A. Fisher) overreaches himself when he attempts to trick his sister into signing away her property. Driven to distraction, Cordelia attempts suicide by gulping down a bottle of “Roach Poison” kept by her maid, Rebecca Allup (Tony Hart) but the poison is simply Rebecca's secret cache of booze. The Mulligans are soon heading back to their old neighborhood. Notable songs: Dad's Dinner Pail; Mulligan Guard's March. The Harrigan and Hart production is generally acknowledged as the best in their series of plays dealing with the Mulligan family, Irish immigrants who have settled in the rough‐and‐tumble Irish ghettos of New York.