Lolita Chakrabarti’s Palimpsestuous Re-vision of Ira Aldridge’s Acting as Othello in Red Velvet

Abstract

British actress Lolita Chakrabarti’s debut as a playwright in Red Velvet, shall be regarded as one of the most successful and sophisticated contemporary revisionary engagements with the history of both Victorian theatre and of Shakespearean theatrical performance. The play is a re-vision of the life of American actor Ira Aldridge (1807-1867)—the first Black classical actor to achieve distinction as an interpreter of Shakespeare on the British and continental stages—which focuses on his short-lived debut at Theatre Royal Covent Garden in 1833 as Othello.  This article analyses the play’s metatheatrical strategies and playful engagement with the self-enclosed and self-referential nature of theatrical meaning to propose a critical reading that underscores the play’s overtly palimpsestic form and the complexities of its palimpsestuous intertextual engagements. It focuses, in particular, on its engagement with Othello’s interpretive traditions to imagine Aldridge’s performance of the tragic hero as modern, unconventional and ahead of his time.