The conventions of the biographical play have remained largely unchanged since their inception: a single individual with an exceptional idea stands by his/her convictions against adversity, authority and assorted naysayers. In the movies, our hero typically emerges triumphant, but in plays, not always so. The hero of Lolita Chakrabarti's meticulously researched biodrama, Red Velvet, is Ira Aldridge, an African-American actor whose career, from 1825 to 1867, spanned all of Europe in a repertoire dominated—but not restricted to—Shakespearean classics. Our narrative begins with Aldridge at the end of his career, on what would be his final tour, where an upstart journalist seeking an interview spurs the headliner's recollections of his sensational debut in the role of Othello the Moor at London's Covent Garden in 1833. The innovative practice of racial-accurate casting would have been enough to shock English audiences protective of their national scribe, without the outrage generated by hearing their Bard's lofty language uttered by a former slave in the accents of a former British colony, in addition to the emotion-driven physicality of the controversial "domestic" acting style favored by Aldridge. Even as audiences flocked to see this curiosity, critics censured his performance in terms unspeakable today. If Chakrabarti structures her play along generic lines—did I mention the scene where Aldridge makes his initial entrance, and everybody but a lone abolitionist stares in dumbstruck astonishment?—it is only to facilitate our comprehension of a text locating its central events firmly within the context of its age, name-checking such benchmarks as the legal status of slavery, changing fashions in popular entertainment, superstars of the era like William Macready and Joseph Grimaldi—in order to ensure our awareness of the risk associated with the characters' decisions in the social environment occasioning the turmoil arising therefrom. Even the most efficiently articulated history lesson risks miring down in academic minutiae. However, under the direction of Michael Menendian, the cast of this Raven Theater production—in particular, Brandon Greenhouse's Aldridge, who moves from operatic grandiloquence to heartbreaking intimacy with a charismatic grace and elegance—wrap themselves seamlessly into their personae with unswerving commitment to generate an urgency. This propels the action at a vigorous pace commanding our attention from the first moments of the two-hour running time right up to the poignant denouement when the aged idol dons whiteface in preparation for playing Lear, who will, later that night, speak to us from the stage of bitterness and betrayal.
