Theater Preview: 'Red Velvet' raises the curtain on a forgotten, barrier-breaking star

By Lynne Heffley

April 16, 2016 1:56 PM PT

When 19th-century, American-born black actor Ira Aldridge died in 1867 while on tour in Poland, he was given a state burial. One of the highest paid actors of his time, if not the highest, Aldridge was the toast of continental Europe, recipient of a trove of medals, honors and awards from royal heads of state in recognition of his work on the Shakespearean stage. Yet today, in his native country, Aldridge’s extraordinary story of success is generally forgotten.

“Even in other parts of the world you have to do some digging to find it,” said Benjamin Pohlmeier, the founder of Los Angeles-based Junction Theatre. “He did fall victim to history. That’s why we’re excited to be bringing his story back to life” — in the West Coast premiere of “Red Velvet,” by Lolita Chakrabarti, running through April 30 at the Atwater Playhouse.

Ira Aldridge was born in 1807 to a free couple in New York. Classically educated, he performed Shakespearean repertoire with the African Grove Theatre, one of the first black theater companies in the country. After untenable and at times violent white pushback that eventually forced the theater to close, Aldridge left for England in 1824.

With his debut performance at London’s Royal Coburg Theatre the following year, he became the first professional African-American actor in the country.

“Red Velvet” begins in 1833, when Aldridge stepped into the role of Shakespeare’s Othello at Covent Garden’s Theatre Royal, replacing an ailing Edmund Kean, one of the era’s most renowned actors.

The black actor’s performance in a role customarily played on the legitimate stage by white actors in blackface was excoriated in the press (which was also preoccupied with heated objections to British Parliament’s pending vote to abolish slavery in the colonies).

Both Aldridge and the theater’s manager, Pierre La Porte, “took a huge risk in breaking that color barrier in 1833,” said Pohlmeier, the play’s producer and director. “The audience reacted enthusiastically, but the press skewered him.

Aldridge basically said, ‘If London doesn’t want me, I’ll make my name throughout Europe.’ And he performed until his last breath,” Pohlmeier said. “Toward the end of this play, he’s getting ready to play the role of Lear, and it is a historical fact that he passed away the next day.”

The “Red Velvet” cast includes film actor and experimental theater artist Paul Outlaw as Aldridge, Nicola Bertram as Ellen Tree/Desdemona, Colin Campbell as Pierre Laporte, Adam Chacon, Amanda Charney, Sean C. Dwyer, Kailena Mai, Erin Elizabeth Reed, Dee Dee Stephens and Ben Warner.

“Some people see him as a trailblazer,” said Outlaw, whose credits include the Oscar-winning German short film, “Schwarzfahrer,” and works at Bootleg Theater, Red Cat, the Hammer Museum and the Getty Museum. “He was certainly an anomaly. And inspirational: At 16 or 17, [he] got on a boat, went to England, and through sheer force of will, ambition and talent, achieved so many things. His debut at Covent Garden, his so-called ‘tragic debut,’ took place in the same month that slavery was abolished in the British colonies.”

Aldridge’s reaction could be played “with defensiveness or rage,” Outlaw commented, “but there is triumph in what he achieved outside of London. He managed to tour the continent of Europe nine times, he saw parts of the world that no London actor every saw, [and] “he was probably the highest paid artist in the world at the time.”

Plays that resonate with social and political issues of today are a Junction Theatre signature, although, as the company’s production of “Red Velvet” got under way, “it was by complete happenstance that the whole ‘OscarSoWhite’ controversy started happening,” Pohlmeier said, in reference to the backlash to another year of all-white Academy Award nominees in the top acting categories.

“It made this play all the more relevant, because it deals with inclusion and race — and artistry and passion and all those things that are packed into this production.”

Among previous Junction productions are Nilo Cruz’s “Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams” in collaboration with CASA 0101 Theater, revolving around Cuban exiles who return to Cuba to rediscover their heritage; and a pairing of “The Einstein Project” by Paul D’Andrea and Jon Klein, and Hisashi Inoue’s “The Face of Jizo” commemorating the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

“‘The Einstein Project’ deals with how Einstein, who was originally a pacifist, did a complete about-face to encourage the development of the atomic bomb,” Pohlmeier said.

“‘The Face of Jizo’ is about a survivor of that bomb. We’re trying to contribute to the ongoing discussions of the community. A lot of these plays are about historical events that are very complex. Sometimes, we forget how complex. Doing productions like this,” he said, “can help paint a more detailed picture of what might have [led] to those events.”

“Red Velvet” does tend to generate a certain amount of buzz after the performances, Pohlmeier noted. “Sometimes it’s nice to have a play that wraps everything up for you and tells you what the moral is. But sometimes it’s also helpful to not have all the answers, especially in this play,” he said, “where the topic of race is not resolved and requires an ongoing discussion.”

“I just hope that people who come and see it are able to take something away from it.” The one thing about theater, Pohlmeier said, “is that even if for just those two hours, or a little bit afterward, you get somebody to ponder a different perspective, I think we as artists have done a good job. That’s what I’m always hoping to achieve.”

(Note: Because Ira Aldridge’s performance in “Othello” figures so prominently in “Red Velvet,” Pohlmeier mounted the play to run in conjunction with Independent Shakespeare Co.’s production of Shakespeare’s tragedy, playing through May 7 in the same Atwater arts complex.)

What: “Red Velvet”

Where: Atwater Playhouse, Atwater Crossing Arts + Innovation Complex, 3191 Casitas Ave., #100, Los Angeles

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 5 p.m. Sunday. Ends April 30.

Tickets: $25; students, seniors and veterans, $20.

More info: (800) 838-3006, redvelvet.brownpapertickets.com, www.thejunctiontheatre.org, atwaterplayhouse.com

LYNNE HEFFLEY writes about theater and culture for Marquee.

Theater Preview: ‘Red Velvet’ raises the curtain on a forgotten, barrier-breaking star