Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 1852-1855

Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 1852-1855

Lindfors, Bernth

Hardcover

Series: Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora, Book 59

Entertainment & Performing ArtsLiterary Criticism

ISBN10: 1580464726
ISBN13: 9781580464727
Publisher: University of Rochester Press
Published: Dec 15 2013
Pages: 362
Weight: 1.55
Height: 1.22 Width: 6.43 Depth: 9.32
Language: English
This book describes the glory years of Ira Aldridge's first Continental tour, during which he won more awards and honors, often conferred by royalty, than any other actor of his day.

2015 George Freedley Memorial Award (Theatre Library Association)

Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 1852-1855, the third volume of Bernth Lindfors's award-winning biography, traces the American-born black classical actor's itinerary on his first Continental tour. Starting inBrussels and following Aldridge up the Rhine to Basel, on to Berlin and Vienna, and cities in Prussia and Hungary, Lindfors recounts the major performances and analyzes audience responses to them.

Because European audiences wanted to see this African actor in Shakespearean roles rather than in the melodramas and farces that were popular in Britain, Aldridge concentrated almost exclusively on performing as Othello, Shylock, Macbeth, and Richard III. He performed the roles in English even when acting with local companies who spoke in German, Hungarian, or another European language. Aldridge's impressive manner of interpreting these characters won him many honors, awards, and medals, some bestowed by heads of state or by national academies. Drawing on myriad reviews, playbills, and letters, many of them penned by Aldridge himself, Lindfors examines in detail Aldridge's interpretations of these timeless characters and shows why these were Aldridge's glory years.

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