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Ira Aldridge stars in Doncaster

Ira Aldridge was famously the first black actor to play Othello, and here we see him performing that very part at the Theatre Royal in Doncaster in 1841.

What’s noticeable about our featured theatre playbill from the time, now stored in the British Library, is the long list of Ira’s distinguished patrons - dozens of them, showcased here to wow the audiences.

Ira Aldridge, the first black Shakespearean. Credit - Beinecke Collection.
Playbill courtesy of British Library

FASHIONABLE DRAMATIC ENTERTAINMENT as Othello and Ira Aldridge come to Doncaster!

Princes, peers of the realm and politicians are among the high profile fans of actor Ira Aldridge, listed on this British Library playbill. The famous black American actor is performing in the town on Monday 1 March 1841.

His performance of Othello has been a tour de force in the provinces and is fresh from London, Dublin and Edinburgh.

Audiences will be able to enjoy his portrayal alongside two other roles - Bertram and Jim Crow – and he has added local references for the enjoyment of the Yorkshire audience.

What is so extraordinary about this playbill is the long list of distinguished patrons it features – around 100 or so 'names' who are all fans of the 'African Roscius'.

From His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex to His Majesty Leopold the First of Belgium, Aldridge carefully and cannily recorded the great and the good who came to see him.

His long list – which lesser actors would read with envy - includes foreign monarchs, MPs, Lords and Ladies, Archbishops, and medical and military men. Among the names that stand out are the Duke of Wellington and the writer Sir Walter Scott.

Aldridge emigrated to England from New York in 1807 and was by this time a well-established performer in the provinces.

Othello was usually paired with an entertainment that owed much to the black minstrel tradition and the racial stereotype of the black servant.

Included in the entertainment on this particular evening is an account of his travels across England alongside his African origins.

Although this story was largely fabricated, it’s believed he did this to explain his blackness and sell his performances. At the time there was a strong tradition of actors performing the role of Othello as a “tawny moor” exemplified by the famous actor Edmund Kean. Aldridge, who could not be described as “light-skinned”, was never as successful in London as in the provinces and abroad.

It is also suspected that his underwhelming reception in the capital may have been down to the fact that his Othello was usually paired with an entertainment that owed much to the black minstrel tradition and the racial stereotype of the black servant.

Courtesy of British Library

About Shakespeare on Tour

From the moment they were written through to the present day, Shakespeare’s plays have continued to enthral and inspire audiences. They’ve been performed in venues big and small – including inns, private houses and emerging provincial theatres.

BBC English Regions is building a digital picture which tracks some of the many iconic moments across the country as we follow the ‘explosion’ in the performance of The Bard’s plays, from his own lifetime to recent times.

Drawing on fascinating new research from Records of Early English Drama (REED), plus the British Library's extensive collection of playbills, as well as expertise from De Montfort University and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Shakespeare on Tour is a unique timeline of iconic moments of those performances, starting with his own troupe of actors, to highlights from more recent times. Listen out for stories on Shakespeare’s legacy on your BBC Local Radio station from Monday 21 March, 2016.

You never know - you might find evidence of Shakespeare’s footsteps close to home…

Craig Henderson, BBC English Regions

The actor who overcame prejudice to win over audiences

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....

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