Ira Aldridge

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Ira Aldridge
Ira Aldridge as Aaron in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, c. 1852
Personal details
Born Ira Frederick Aldridge
July 24, 1807
New York City
Died 7 August 1867
Łódź, Congress Poland
Spouse(s) Margaret Gill, Amanda von Brandt
Profession Actor
Ira Aldridge as Mungo in The Padlock

Ira Frederick Aldridge (July 24, 1807 – August 7, 1867) was an American and later British stage actor who made his career largely on the London stage and in Europe, especially in Shakespearean roles. He is the only actor of African-American descent among the 33 actors of the English stage honored with bronze plaques at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. He was especially popular in Prussia and Russia, where he received top honors from heads of state.

Early life and career

Aldridge was born in New York City to Reverend Daniel and Luranah Aldridge July 24, 1807. According to Aldridge, his paternal grandfather was a Christian chief of the Fula in Senegal.[1] At age 13, Aldridge went to the African Free School in New York City, established by the New York Manumission Society for the children of free blacks and slaves. They were given a classical education, with the study of English grammar, writing, mathematics, geography, and astronomy.[2] His early exposure to theater included viewing plays from the high balcony of the Park Theatre, New York's leading theater of the time.

Aldridge's first professional acting experience was in the early 1820s with the company associated with the African Grove, an African-American theatre. He debuted as Rolla in Pizzaro. He went on to play Shakespeare's Romeo and later became a notable Hamlet.

Confronted with the persistent discrimination which black actors endured in the United States, Aldridge emigrated to England, where he first worked as a dresser to the British actor Henry Wallack. According to the scholar Shane White, English people had heard of the African Theatre because of British actor and comedian Charles Mathews, so Aldridge associated himself with that.[3] Bernth Lindfors says,

"[W]hen Aldridge starts appearing on the stage at the Royalty Theatre, he’s just called a gentleman of color. But when he moves over to the Royal Coburg, he’s advertised in the first playbill as the American Tragedian from the African Theater New York City. The second playbill refers to him as 'The African Tragedian.' So everybody goes to the theater expecting to laugh because this is the man they think Mathews saw in New York City."[4]
In his performances, Aldridge used his skill to reverse what was expected.[4]

Aldridge performed scenes from Othello that stunned reviewers. One critic wrote, "In Othello (Aldridge) delivers the most difficult passages with a degree of correctness that surprises the beholder."[5] He gradually progressed to larger roles; by 1825, he had top billing at London's Coburg Theatre as Oronoko in A Slave's Revenge, soon to be followed by the role of Gambia in The Slave, and the title role of Shakespeare's Othello. He also played major roles in plays such as The Castle Spectre and The Padlock, and played several roles of specifically white characters, including Captain Dirk Hatteraick and Bertram in Rev. R. C. Maturin's Bertram, the title role in Shakespeare's Richard III, and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

Touring and later years

Portrait in pastel, by Taras Shevchenko, 1858

In 1831 Aldridge successfully played in Dublin; several locations in southern Ireland, where he created a sensation in the small towns; as well as in Bath, England and Edinburgh, Scotland. The actor Edmund Kean praised his Othello; some took him to task for taking liberties with the text, while others attacked his race. Since he was an American black actor from the African Theater, the Times called him the "African Roscius". Aldridge used this to his benefit and expanded African references in his biography that appeared in playbills.[4]

Aldridge first toured to continental Europe in 1852, with successes in Germany, where he was presented to the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, performed for Frederick William IV of Prussia, and performed in Budapest. An 1858 tour took him to Serbia and to Imperial Russia, where he became acquainted with Count Fyodor Tolstoy, Mikhail Shchepkin and the Ukrainian poet and artist Taras Shevchenko, who did his portrait in pastel (left).

Now of an appropriate age, about this time, he played the title role of King Lear (in England) for the first time. He purchased some property in England, toured Russia again (1862), and applied for British citizenship (1863).

Marriage and family

Soon after going to England, in 1824 Aldridge married Margaret Gill, an English woman. They were married for 40 years before her death in 1864.

A year after Margaret's death, on April 20, 1865, Aldridge married his mistress, the self-styled Swedish countess Amanda von Brandt, with whom he already had a son, Ira Daniel. They had four more children: Irene Luranah, Ira Frederick and Amanda Aldridge, who all went on to musical careers, the two girls as opera singers. Their daughter Rachael Frederica was born shortly after Aldridge's death and died in infancy.

Aldridge spent most of his final years with his family in Russia and continental Europe, interspersed with occasional visits to England. He planned to return to the post-Civil-War United States, but he died in August 1867 while visiting Łódź, Poland.

His remains were buried in the city's Evangelical Cemetery; 23 years passed before a proper tombstone was erected. His grave is tended by the Society of Polish Artists of Film and Theatre.

A half-length portrait of 1826 by James Northcote of Aldridge dressed for the role of Othello, but in a relatively undramatic portrait pose, is on display at the Manchester Art Gallery (in the Manchester section); Aldridge performed in the city many times.[6] A blue plaque unveiled in 2007 commemorates Aldridge at 5 Hamlet Road in Upper Norwood, London.[7] The plaque describes him as the 'African Roscius'.[7]

Gallery

Children

  • Ira Daniel Aldridge, 1847 – ?. Teacher. Migrated to Australia in 1867.
  • Irene Luranah Pauline Aldridge, 1860–1932. Opera singer.
  • Ira Frederick Olaff Aldridge, 1862 – ?. Musician and composer.
  • Amanda Christina Elizabeth Aldridge (Amanda Ira Aldridge), 1866–1956. Opera singer, teacher and composer under name of Montague Ring.
  • Rachael Margaret Frederika Aldridge, 1867, died in infancy.

Legacy and honors

African American
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  • He received awards for his art from European heads of state and governments: the Prussian Gold Medal for Arts and Sciences from King Frederick William III, the Golden Cross of Leopold from the Czar of Russia, and the Maltese Cross from Berne, Switzerland.[8]
  • Aldridge is the only African American to have a bronze plaque among the 33 actors honored at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon.
  • Aldridge's legacy was an inspiration behind the dramatic writing of African American playwright Henry Francis Downing,[9] who in the early twentieth century became "probably the first person of African descent to have a play of his or her own written and published in Britain."[10]
  • In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Ira Aldridge on his 100 Greatest African Americans.
  • His life was the subject of a play, Red Velvet, by Lolita Chakrabarti and starring Adrian Lester, at the Tricycle Theatre in 2012.
  • Howard University Department of Theatre Arts has a small theater named after Ira Aldridge.

References

  1. ↑ Marshall, Stock, 1993, pp. 14-15
  2. ↑ Nicholas M. Evans, "Ira Aldridge, Shakespeare and Minstrelsy", The American Transcendental Quarterly, 1 September 2002, carried at Goliath
  3. ↑ Shane White, Shakespeare in American Life, accessed 14 Oct 2010
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Bernth Lindfors, "Aldridge in Europe: How Aldridge Controlled His Identity as the "African Roscius", Shakespeare in American Life, Folger Shakespeare Theatre, accessed 15 Oct 2010
  5. ↑ Herbert Marshall, Ira Aldridge: The African Tragedian,
  6. ↑ Manchester Art Gallery
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "ALDRIDGE, IRA (1807-1867)". English Heritage. Retrieved 2012-08-17. 
  8. ↑ Douglas O. Barnett, "Ira Aldridge", Black Past, accessed 15 Oct 2010
  9. ↑ Roberts, Brian (2012). "A London Legacy of Ira Aldridge: Henry Francis Downing and the Paratheatrical Poetics of Plot and Cast(e)". Modern Drama 55 (3): 386–406. 
  10. ↑ Chambers, Colin (2011). Black and Asian Theatre in Britain: A History. London: Routledge. p. 63. 

Further reading

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