A Black Othello outrages London
Chakrabarti's Red Velvet script pulls in opposite directions not always reconciled
Lolita Chakrabarti's Red Velvet, at the Arts Club's Stanley Theatre, reimagines a dramatic moment in the history of the British stage. When the great Shakespearean Edmund Kean falls ill playing Othello in 1833 at London's Theatre Royal, Black American actor Ira Aldridge steps into the role. The shock waves from this radical event reverberate through the theatre company and Aldridge's life.
In 1833 slavery was still legal in Britain. Although Aldridge had been performing across the British Isles for years, it's not impossible to imagine that his replacement of the nation's greatest actor in this iconic role in a Covent Garden theatre at the very heart of the empire might have proven too much for his cast mates and the London critics.
We first meet Aldridge (Quincy Armorer) in Lodz, Poland in 1867 — where and when the historical Aldridge died. He remains a star in Europe but is reluctant to even talk about performing in Covent Garden. We flash back to 1833 and learn why.
The cast of Othello, including Kean's son Charles (Sebastien Archibald), playing Iago, and Charles' fiancée Ellen (Lindsey Angell), who plays Desdemona, are discussing debates over the sugar trade and the abolition of slavery that are roiling Parliament and the streets, and wondering how theatre manager Pierre (John Emmet Tracy) will replace Kean. Black maid Connie (Kyla Ward) stands quietly in the background, largely invisible to them.
When Pierre brings in Aldridge, the company members are literally dumbstruck. Charles is outraged, as is older actor Bernard (Anthony F. Ingram). Ellen is curious and soon becomes an ally, along with younger actors Betty (Tess Degenstein) and Henry (Nathan Kay). Ellen works hard to adjust herself to Aldridge's very different style, Charles does everything to undermine him, and London's racist critics will have the last word.
Armorer is excellent. He plays Aldridge as cool and relaxed offstage, matter-of-factly letting the mostly unspoken racism roll off him until he can't any more. His American acting style is much more naturalistic than the broadly gestural British style, all poses and arms akimbo. Watch him trying to get Desdemona to speak her lines to him rather than out to the audience.
Tracy's Pierre and Angell's Ellen also offer solid, grounded performances. I had some trouble with the other characters. Archibald's Charles is a one-note curmudgeon while Bernard, Betty, and Henry are sometimes cartoonishly comic. Much of the play is presented as broad comedy even as the portrayal of Aldridge modulates toward dramatic outrage, anger, and pathos. Chakrabarti's script pulls in opposite directions and director Omari Newton doesn't always reconcile them.
Other elements are also problematic. The overly long opening scene in Lodz is unsubtly expositional, and Chakrabarti spends more time developing the peripheral character of the young Polish journalist (Degenstein) than the much more central maid Connie and Aldridge's wife Margaret (Degenstein again), the discussions of slavery, or the potential romance between Aldridge and Ellen. A physical fight between Pierre and Aldridge at the dramatic climax feels redundant.
I admired C.S. Fergusson-Vaux's handsome period costumes and Amir Ofek's semitransparent set that provides a couple of great moments when Aldridge literally sinks into the depths. But I wanted a more fully developed sense of the clash between the fascinating, groundbreaking Ira Aldridge and the world of appallingly skewed attitudes toward race in which he had to practice his art.