The Life of Ira Aldridge
Meet the celebrated African American actor and activist — and the subject of Lolita Chakrabarti’s play Red Velvet, on the Lantern stage September 7 — October 15, 2017.
Ira Aldridge, the real historical figure at the center of Red Velvet, was born in 1807 in New York City to Daniel and Luranah Aldridge. Daniel was a preacher and a straw salesman, but little is known about Luranah before her 1818 death, when Aldridge was just 11 years old. Both parents were free at a time when slavery was still 60 years from being abolished in the United States.
As a young man, Aldridge attended the African Free School and fell in love with performing at the African Grove Theatre. By the age of 14, he was performing in Shakespearean classics such as Romeo & Juliet and Richard III. By 17 he befriended Henry Wallack, a celebrated British actor performing in New York. When Wallack returned to England, Aldridge accompanied him across the Atlantic as his dresser and valet. Aldridge would never return to the United States, nor see his father again.
Aldridge landed in Liverpool in 1824, planning to study theology at university. Instead, he found success in minor theaters in and around London. In an effort to generate interest for a little-known American with a thin resume, Aldridge styled himself as Mr. Keene and invented a princely African lineage. He also went by “The African Roscius” after a famous Roman actor. His promotions worked: by 18, he had already played Othello and starred in The Revolt of Surinam, becoming the first black actor to play the Royal Coburg Theatre. That year, he married an Englishwoman, Margaret Gill, just six weeks after meeting her. Over the next several years, he toured the provinces with a number of plays, including another Othello in Belfast.
The major turning point of Aldridge’s life came in 1833 when Edmund Kean collapsed onstage at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden while playing Othello. Aldridge took over the role, and became the first black actor to play Othello on a major British stage. The events of his two-day run at Covent Garden are at the heart of Red Velvet.
After his tumultuous run at Covent Garden, Aldridge never again played the Theatre Royal. Instead, he returned to the provinces, touring all over England and often playing Othello. Eliza O’Neill, a leading actress of the time, said “During my professional and private life, I never saw so correct a portraiture of Othello amidst the principal luminaries of my age…[his] acting throughout is transcendently uniform.” When he played Othello at London’s Lyceum in 1858, many of the same papers that dismissed him at Covent Garden praised him warmly, and audiences received him enthusiastically.
The audience with one impulse rose to its feet amid the wildest enthusiasm… “Othello” was called before the curtain and received the applause of the delighted multitude. — William Wells Brown, abolitionist, playwright, and historian
Aldridge left the British Isles in 1852 for the first of his nine European tours, where he found acclaim, adoration, honors, and awards playing King Lear, Shylock, Othello, and other major Shakespearean characters in Germany, Russia, Poland, and beyond. He collected honors, including a German knighthood, and was a major star on the European circuit, often performing in English while the local actors in each city spoke in their native language. Despite the exceptional adulation, he was never quite being able to outrun the discrimination that toppled his Covent Garden run; while in Moscow, despite the massive public clamor for tickets, some of the most distinguished Russian actors refused to work with him.
“In the role of Othello, Mr. Aldridge was extraordinary… he is a genuine tiger.”
— Sergei Durylin, Russian scholar
Acting was not just a passion for Aldridge, but a vehicle for activism. In addition to playing Shakespeare’s great heroes, Aldridge also worked to rehabilitate characters such as Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus. In Shakespeare’s original, the character is devious and linked with evil. In Aldridge’s reimagining, Aaron is the courageous, tragic hero, sacrificing himself for his son. And Aldridge didn’t just let the work stand for him; he often spoke directly to audiences at the end of his engagements, explicitly denouncing slavery.
For all the passion he displayed onstage, Aldridge’s personal life was no less dramatic. Though married to Margaret until her death in 1864, Aldridge kept mistresses and had children out of wedlock. Margaret accepted this, and loved and raised Aldridge’s son of an unknown mother. He had more children with Amanda von Brandt, who became his second wife; one daughter, named for Aldridge’s mother, became a celebrated opera singer.
Aldridge died in Lodz, Poland while on tour in 1867. His wife and children were in London. His father was long dead in the United States. But he was not isolated, for his admirers celebrated his extraordinary life. The American actor and British transplant was given a state funeral in Poland, and is buried with honors in Lodz.
Join us for Red Velvet at Lantern Theater Company, Sept. 7 — Oct. 15, 2017. Visit our website for tickets and information.
