Sample Scene
Weber & Fields Vaudeville Sketch (1880s)
Written by Joe Weber & Lew Fields
Lew Fields ("Myer") pokes away
at his diminutive partner Joseph Weber ("Mike"), becoming
vaudeville's the most popular comedy team.
After Joseph Weber and Lew Fields met as schoolboys on Manhattan's impoverished Lower East Side, they formed a comedy act and developed a series of roughouse ethnic routines while touring the variety circuits. In time, they perfected the characters "Myer" (the tall Fields) and "Mike" (the shorter Weber), a pair of German immigrants with broad accents, bristling whiskers and garish clothes. The trim Weber padded himself to an enormous girth, and wore a loud checkered suit -- in contrast to the taller, more plainly dressed Fields. The not-too-clever "Myer" invariably tried to swindle the gullible "Mike," always resulting in a knockabout physical battle.
Weber and Fields became vaudeville's definitive "Dutch" act (a common slang corruption of "Deutsch"). Their stage accents bore little resemblance to Gemran, and in fact sounded like parodies of the Yiddish accents heard on the streets of New York's Lower East Side -- where the team grew up. Not that anyone really cared about the accents. According to Weber, "All the public wanted to see was Fields knock the hell out of me." They became one of the most imitated vaudeville acts, but no one matched them.
During their vaudeville heyday, Weber & Fields developed several reliable routines for these characters, including this marriage skit, which biographer Felix Isman preserved in Weber and Fields: Their Tribulations, Triumphs and Their Associations (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1924).
(NOTE: What may appear to be typographical errors are actually an effort to capture the zany mispronunciations Weber & Fields specialized in.)
MIKE (Weber)
I am delightfulness to meet you.
MYER (Fields)
Der disgust is all mine
MIKE
I recivedidid a letter from mein goil, but I don't know how to
writteninin her back.
MYER
Writteninin her back? Such an edumuncation you got it? Writteninin her
back! You mean rotteninin her back. How can you answer her ven you don't
know how to write?
MIKE
Dot makes no nefer mind. She don't know how to read.
MYER
If you luf her, vy don't you send her some poultry?
MIKE
She don't need no poultry; her father is a butcher.
MYER
I mean luf voids like Romeo und Chuliet talks.
"If you luf you like I luf me,
No knife can cut us together."
MIKE
I don't like dot.
MYER
Vell, vot do you vant to say to her?
MIKE
I don't vant you to know vat I'm saying to her. All I vant you to do is
to tell me vot to put in her letter.
MYER
Such a foolishness you are! If I don't tell you vot to say, how vill you
know vot to write if she don't know how to read?
MIKE
I don't vant nobody to know vot I'm writteninin to her.
MYER
You don't vant nobody to know vot you are rotteninin?
MIKE
No.
MYER
Then send her a postal card.
MIKE
Send her a postal card? If I do she'll think I don't care two cendts for
her.
MYER
Are you going to marry her?
MIKE
In two days, I vill be a murdered man.
MYER
A vot?
MIKE
I mean a married man.
MYER
I hope you vill always look back upon der presendt moment as her
habbiest moment uff your life.
MIKE
But I aind't married yet.
MYER
I know it, und fudermore, upon dis suspicious occasion, I also vish to
express to you--charges collect--my uppermost depreciation of der
dishonor you haf informed upon me in making me your bridesmaid.
MIKE
Der insuldt is all mein.
MYER
As you standt before me now, soo young, soo innocent, soo obnoxious, the
is only one void dat can express mein pleasure, mein dissatisfaction--
MIKE
Yes, yes?
MYER
Und I can't tink of der void.
MIKE
I know I vill be happy.
MYER
I know you vill be. (He shakes MIKE's hand feelingly.) Und later on, ven
you lose all your money, und you vife goes back on you, und your house
burns down, und your children get run over, then I your best friendt,
vill take you by der hand--
MIKE
(Wiping a furtive tear away) Yes, yes!
MYER
Und say--
MIKE
Yes, yes!
MYER
Und say, "I told you so!"
MIKE
Say, vot is dis goig to be, a vedding or ein funeral?
MYER
A wedding, in course; und remember also dot vile I vish you plendty uff
mishaps, I also vish you lodts uff misfortunes.