William Macready ~ Edmund Kean ~ And Ira Alridge
Above Video: Writer Lolita Chakrabarti On Ira Aldridge (Top Right) A Notable But Isolated And Hounded African-American Shakespearean Actor Who Stood For After Edmund Kean (Top Left) After Kean Collapsed On Stage And Died One Night In 1833. Kean Was An Acting Rival of William Macready.
Top Left: An English Heritage Plaque In Honour of Ira Aldridge, Who Once Resided At 5 Hamlet Road, Crystal Palace, SE19, South East London.
In His Excellent Documentary Covent Garden: The People’s Piazza (Available On BBC Iplayer) Historian David Olusoga OBE, Public History Professor At Manchester University, Tells The Story of The African-American Actor (Ira Aldridge) Who Became Edmund Keen’s Successor.
Actor Adrian Lester First Played Ira Aldridge In The Play ‘Red Velvet’ At The Tricycle Theatre In 2012. It Was Written By His Wife Lolita Chakrabarti (Above). A Year After ‘Red Velvet’ He Also Became The First Black Actor To Play Othello At The National Theatre In 2013, (Directed By Sam Mendes Who Would Later Directed The James Bond Movie Skyfall) @adrianlester Lester Played Aldridge Many Times Since Including At The Garrick Theatre Under Kenneth Branagh’s Theatre Company In 2016 And Throughout Canada And America Over The Following Years.
See Ira Aldridge For Young Readers (By Judy Hepburn) @TheBibiCrew. Hopefully, Modern Day Performer & Writer Mark Stratford Will Be Caring And Inspired Enough To Do A Little Rewrite. Only Time Will Tell. We Look Forward To Seeing His Play Again Should It Happen @stratfordproductions @ira_aldridge
Paterson Joseph As Ignatius Sancho (He Also Played Ebenezer Scrooge In Dicken’s A Christmas Carol At The Old Vic In 2019). Paterson, Like Stratford, Studied His Subject’s Diaries For His One Man Play Production.
(Ignatius Sancho Lived 1729-1780) (Edmund Kean 1787-1833) (William Macready 1793-1873) (Ira Aldridge 1807-1867) (Charles Dickens 1812 -1870)
Edmund Kean Born November 1787 (Westminster, Central London, England) Died 1833 Aged 46 (Just 6 Years Older Than Macready He Died Relatively Young And 40 Yrs Before Macready Died).
Ira Alridge Born July 1807 (New York City, New York, America) Died 1867 Aged 60. He Was 20 Years Younger Than Edmund Keen And Died Virtually 3 And A Half Decades After Him. However He Took Over The Role of Othello From Kean When The Latter Took Ill And Was Unable To Go On Stage One Night. (He Was Also 14 Years Younger Than Macready But Died Six Years Before Him).
If Novelist Charles Dicken’s Was Macready’s Theatrical Friend, Actor Edmund Kean Was Macready’s Theatrical Foe!
As Macready Stratford Tells The Tale of How Kean Was Effectively His Competition When It Came To Working In The Royally Approved WestEnd Theatres (Just Two At The Time) As He Was So Very Well Established.
However Despite The African-American, Shakespearean Actor, Ira Alridge Superceeding Edmund Kean After Kean Collapsed On Stage And Became Too Ill To Carry On In His Role As Othello At The Theatre Royal Covent Garden, In 1833, Alridge Does Not Get A Mention In Stratford’s Show.
Even Though Both Aldridge And Kean Suffered An End To Their West End Careers Shortly Afterwards.
TheOrator.Press ~ A New, Monthly, Online, Independent Magazine 