Aldridge quickly built a reputation touring Britain. He was a sensation, especially because he was often introducing then-unknown Shakespearean plays. With the help of the visiting English star Henry Wallack, Ira Aldridge made his way to Britain and in 1825 became probably the first black actor to play Shakespeare in this country, performing Othello in London’s docklands: it was “one of the finest physical representations of bodily anguish we have ever witnessed,” said the Public Ledger review. All Rights Reserved. Read about our approach to external linking. Aldridge played Othello only twice before the show was cancelled. Rehabilitated Peregrine Falcons Released Near Shawangunk Ridge, Audio Technology, Trademarks and A Terrier Named Nipper, Knapp’s Folly: Sullivan County’s Columbia Hotel, The Sinking of The S.S. Normandie At NYC’s Pier 88, Frances Perkins, One of America’s Most Influential Women, Remains Unrecognized. The actor Edmund Kean praised his Othello; some took him to task for taking liberties with the text, while others attacked his race. Shortly after, he went on a tour of Europe, delighting audiences with his performances of Othello, as well as Shylock, Macbeth, and King Lear – all in whiteface staging. He appeared before crowned heads; he was knighted in Germany; banned in Russia (Macbeth offended the Tsar because it dealt with regicide – the deliberate killing of a monarch) and he influenced a new generation of actors and theatre reformers. Early white protests were uttered by members of the Society of Friends. Please enter your number below. The book tells of his kidnap in Nigeria, his being sold into slavery, his journey to the West Indies, his life as a slave, and the struggle to buy his freedom. Abandoned by the authorities, these soldiers were deprived of pensions, and forced into beggary. In 1783, a number of Quakers established the London Committee to Abolish the Slave Trade, Britain’s first anti-slavery society. in the prosperous London suburb of Upper Norwood, before becoming a naturalised British citizen in 1863. That January he first presented Aldridge at Birmingham in the musical melodrama The Slave, soon followed by Othello. Tony Howard is professor of English at Warwick University and head of the Multicultural Shakespeare Project. Having become Chevalier Ira Aldridge, Knight of Saxony, he was at last in 1858, deemed worthy to perform at the Lyceum. The Act did not abolish slavery itself. Hear more Shakespeare stories on BBC Radio Humberside, The BBC celebrates the genius of the bard.

All Rights Reserved. Aldridge had come a long way from when he’d emigrated to England from New York in 1807. In March 1788 he sent personal letter ‘on behalf of my African brethren’ to Queen Charlotte. The anti-Abolitionist lobby claimed the slave population lacked the intellectual capacity to look after themselves, and as “proof” showed politicians engravings “exhibiting the merriment of colonial negroes”. The Athenaeum, meanwhile, insisted it was impossible that such a savage “should comprehend the meaning and force of even the words he utters”, and raised the spectre of miscegenation: “We protest against an interesting actress and lady-like girl, like Miss Ellen Tree,[…] being pawed about by Mr Henry Wallack’s black servant” [Wallack was a comedy actor who had helped Aldridge get to London, and so hostile writers claimed Aldridge was merely his servant].

In 1852 Aldridge began to tour Continental Europe with a repertoire that by now also included (in makeup designed to make him look white) Macbeth, Lear and Shylock. Ira Aldridge’s early career intersected with the movement for ending slavery.

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Ira Aldridge as Othello. They’ve been performed in venues big and small – including inns, private houses and emerging provincial theatres. Audiences for Aldridge’s Covent Garden performances were thin on the ground due to an outbreak of the flu (and the fact that numbers were lower even than other nights during the period of the outbreak might suggest that some people stayed away on principle), but the majority of theatregoers were enthusiastic about his performance.

Aldridge made his first London appearance as Othello at the Royalty Theatre in London's East End on 11th May 1825 when he was seventeen years old, billed as 'Mr. However, his performance was dismissed by London critics who objected to the actor’s race, youth, and inexperience. The cancellation of the engagement after only two nights might lead us to believe that audiences in London were less accepting of a black Shakespearean actor than elsewhere, but this is not exactly true.

Hull was the home of anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce and thanks to his efforts the slave trade had been abolished in 1807. It seems fitting that the one scene that has survived in Shakespeare’s own hand is part of The Book of Sir Thomas More in which he imagines More condemning a mob’s intolerance and compelling them through his eloquence to understand the plight of refugees and the “wretched strangers”.

Private Research Learn more about ANW and all the amenities we offer! He encompassed the worst and best of black representation onstage, exhibiting artistry and comedy and emotion in every role. When he took on the management of their theatre, Aldridge wrote an open letter to the people of Coventry; when he came to the city, he said, he “might have feared that, unknown and unfriended, he had little claim to public notice — did he not feel that being a foreigner and a stranger are universal passports to British sympathy”. He left his native New York for England and played Othello at Covent Garden, but wasn’t accepted by the London audiences. Ira had toured the South East, and was known to have performed at: The nation’s greatest performing arts institutions mark 400 years since the Bard's death, The actor and comedian explores Othello and 100 years of black British theatre and screen, Writer of Red Velvet, Lolita Chakrabarti, interviews her husband, actor Adrian Lester, about portraying Ira, The Guildford Shakespeare Company are celebrating their tenth anniversary, King George IV attracts star actors to Brighton, The Bachelors of Whitby sponsor a performance of Merchant Of Venice, James I established the ‘King’s Men’ as his official group of theatre players. Image courtesy of Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Rediscovering Ira Aldridge with Adrian Lester, Prince of Wales attracts star Shakespearean actors, Whitby, wealth and a Shakespearean bachelor night, A new king and rebranded Shakespeare’s players head first for Shrewsbury, Shakespeare's men perform before the King at Wilton in Salisbury. Calling all romantics! Although Ira’s casting was coincidental (he was replacing the great Edmund Kean, who was fatally ill), the sight and sound of the African Roscius, as Aldridge was known [Roscius was a Roman actor who had been a slave], playing a great role on a hallowed stage defied that propaganda. Addressed “To The Public”, the flyers protested because a performance of a Shakespeare play had become a political flashpoint. Thank you for subscribing to HistoryExtra, you now have unlimited access. Every year, A Noise Within enriches the lives of over 18,000 Southern California students in our theatre, online, and in your classrooms. You have successfully linked your account! April 13, 2020 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment. Ira Aldridge is one of thirty-three distinguished stage actors and the only one of African-American descent to be memorialised with a bronze plaque at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. On July 2, 1800 a pantomime was performed at London’s Little Theatre, Haymarket. He had long runs in 1831, 1832 and 1833 then briefer engagements in 1834 and throughout the 1840s and 1850s. They’ve been performed in venues big and small – including inns, private houses and emerging provincial theatres.

In 1833, Ira Aldridge was offered the chance to play the title role of Shakespeare’s Othello at Covent Garden, one of London’s most prestigious theatres, when Edmund Kean, who had been scheduled to perform the role, suddenly fell ill. (Kean, who was perhaps the most celebrated British actor of his day, died shortly thereafter.)

The ‘literary’ fight against slavery soon made an impression upon contemporaries. Ira Aldridge, painted in 1848.

Ira Aldridge as Othello, c. 1830. Interestingly, he had limited experience of acting when he arrived from New York.