IRA ALDRIDGE (1807-67)

Ira Aldridge (left as Aaron in Titus Andronicus) was the first black American to achieve stardom in the theatre. But he had to leave the United States to do it. By the time he died in Poland, he had become a British citizen and taken on the trappings and fortune of a true star. Who knows what influence he might have exerted had he decided to return to America.

Said to have been born in West Africa, Aldridge was educated in the exclusive Afro-American Free School, No. 2 in New York City. Founded by the forward looking Society for the Manumission of Slaves, this school provided a solid education for black citizens many of whom were to go on to play a prominent role in American society. It was located near the old Park Theater where the gallery was reserved for blacks. Young Aldridge no doubt could have seen Thomas Cooper, James Wallack, the elder, and many other prominent stars of the day in the standard repertoire of the time. He saw Edmund Kean perform Richard III, Othello, Hamlet, Lear and Shylock there in 1820. Seeing these performances fueled Aldridge's desire to enter the profession.

A Mr. Brown built the first theatre for blacks--a 350 affair--on Mercer Street. It is thought that Aldridge first performed here performing essentially in imitation of Kean and other stars. The theatre became fascinating enough that it was soon patronized by whites, who were given a place set aside for them!

Aldridge secured some sort of employment backstage with James Wallack by1824. He traveled to England with Wallack that year only to split from him after Wallack introduced him as his "servant."

Aldridge remained in England and secured a position at the Coburg Theatre in London where he was presented as "The Celebrated Mr. Keene, Tragedian of Colour." By 1827, his billing was change to "The Celebrated Mr. Keene, the African Roscius." When Edmund Kean was forced o retire from the stage in 1833, Aldridge replaced him in Othello. The audience liked him; but he was criticized for his vulgar accent and his "drawling" style. At twenty-six, it was thought by critics that Aldridge "has no genius, but is not without talent." His second performance of Othello was canceled.

He took up the life of the touring star traveling (as Salvini would do later in the century) to Brussels, Cologne, Leipzig, Berlin, Potsdam and Bonn using local casts who used German translations of the then fashionable Shakespeare while he performed in English. Leopold I of Belgium became his patron; Frederick IV of Prussia gave him the Prussian Gold Medal of the First Class for Art and Science. Critics raved: "After this Othello, it would be an anti-climax to have seen an ordinary Othello again." Jenny Lind called him the greatest Othello of them all.

He was apparently a unique actor. Relatively unschooled as an actor, he developed his own style in front of audiences. He must have been a commanding presence. But when he returned to London, the purists fretted that he had changed certain words to make them less offensive. And some of his business was thought to be too brutal; the Haymarket audience hissed him when he dragged Desdemona around by the hair before he smothered her.

Audiences no doubt knew that he had a white wife, nine years his senior whom he had married during his first year in England. After her death, he married, in 1865, a young Swedish woman by whom he had had a child five years earlier. This tidbit may have added a bit of spice and consternation to his reception.

His extensive tours took him to Russia more than once and he is acknowledged to have had a profound influence on Russian actors.