Ira Aldridge - the first black Shakespearean actor

Ira Aldridge was an American actor who made his career on the London stage, largely as a result of his roles in Shakespeare. But he also toured the regions extensively and audiences across the south east will have had the opportunity to see him perform his famous portrayal of Othello.

He impressed reviewers and some critics: "In Othello (Aldridge) delivers the most difficult passages with a degree of correctness that surprises the beholder."

Interestingly, he had limited experience of acting when he arrived from New York. As a result he played up his African lineage, claiming to be descended from the Fulani princely line.

Ira Aldridge as Othello. Image courtesy of Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

In 1831 he took the name Keene, a homonym for the then famous actor, Edmund Kean. Taking on a similar name to somebody who was already a celebrity on the stage was a common way of gaining recognition.

He was later referred to as the African Roscius, after the famous Roman actor of the first century BC.

He left his native New York for England and played Othello at Covent Garden, but wasn’t accepted by the London audiences.

The traditional story is that this is because of racism – and some papers, including one national newspaper of the day, wrote appallingly racist reviews – but another view suggests it’s less clear-cut, and that a flu outbreak was responsible for a low turn-out and slave supporters bribed reviewers.

Either way, he spent the rest of his career in the British provinces as well as continental Europe, and was hugely successful there.

By Zoë Wilcox, Curator at British Library

The African American actor Ira Aldridge was born in New York City and came to Britain as a teenager to pursue a career on the stage.

Zoë Wilcox

He first performed in Britain in 1825 and quickly became popular with audiences across the country. Almost all of Aldridge’s professional career was spent continuously touring because theatre managers would not employ him for longer periods, meaning that he was probably seen by a wider variety of people than any other Shakespearean actor of the day.

The best known event in Aldridge’s life is his ill-fated appearance as Othello at Covent Garden in 1833, which garnered hostile reactions from sections of the press opposed to a black man performing Shakespeare in such a prestigious venue.

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.

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. Even the critic from The Times, one of the harshest reviewers, grudgingly admitted that Aldridge was ‘extremely well received’.

Read more....