2-982-170 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ira Aldridge, the African Tragedian, as "Othello", 1858. American-born British actor, playwright and theatre manager. '...his impersonations of...Othello, Gambia, Zanga, and other characters suited to his complexion, were so successful that he rose rapidly in histrionic fame...at the fall of the curtain [at the Covent-garden Theatre] he was called for and enthusiastically applauded...As both a tragic and a comic actor Mr. Aldridge's talents are undeniably great. In tragedy he has a solemn intensity of style, bursting occasionally into a blaze of fierce invective or passionate declamation; while the dark shades of his face become doubly sombre in their thoughtful aspect: a nightlike gloom is spread over them, and an expression more terrible than paler lineaments can readily assume. In farce he is exceedingly amusing: the ebony becomes polished; the coal emits sparks...as there is not a darker frown than his, there is not a broader grin'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.