Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Readjusting to Britain
- 2 Crim. Con.
- 3 On the Road Again
- 4 Stockholm
- 5 The Second Continental Tour
- 6 Pest and Buda
- 7 A Short Break
- 8 The Third Continental Tour
- 9 Home Again
- 10 The Fourth Continental Tour
- 11 The Fifth Continental Tour
- 12 The Sixth Continental Tour
- 13 Taking a Break
- 14 The Seventh Continental Tour
- 15 Another Break
- 16 The Eighth Continental Tour
- 17 The Ninth Continental Tour
- 18 Final Acts
- 19 Postmortem
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
1 - Readjusting to Britain
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Readjusting to Britain
- 2 Crim. Con.
- 3 On the Road Again
- 4 Stockholm
- 5 The Second Continental Tour
- 6 Pest and Buda
- 7 A Short Break
- 8 The Third Continental Tour
- 9 Home Again
- 10 The Fourth Continental Tour
- 11 The Fifth Continental Tour
- 12 The Sixth Continental Tour
- 13 Taking a Break
- 14 The Seventh Continental Tour
- 15 Another Break
- 16 The Eighth Continental Tour
- 17 The Ninth Continental Tour
- 18 Final Acts
- 19 Postmortem
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Ira Aldridge may have agreed to give his final performances on his first Continental tour at Dusseldorf's City Theater because the manager there was Theodor Eberhard l’Arronge. L’Arronge, when he was the manager of a theater in Aachen thirty-two months earlier, had given Aldridge his first opportunity to appear before a German-speaking audience that knew and appreciated Shakespeare. Aldridge's success there as Othello, Shylock, and Mungo (in Isaac Bickerstaff's play The Padlock) had immediately led to engagements elsewhere in Prussia and Germany, culminating five months later in a series of performances in Berlin that won him a gold medal from a king as well as opportunities to appear in theaters elsewhere in Europe. To repay the debt he owed l’Arronge for setting him on this lucrative course, he repeated his original program—playing Othello on March 31 and Shylock and Mungo on April 3, 1855.
Aldridge apparently left for London the next day, for one of his admirers in the Netherlands received a letter from him on April 6, stating that he and his wife had fallen seriously ill on their return to England. Judging from the tenor of her immediate reply to his message, one suspects this correspondent may have been, or may have imagined herself to be, rather more than merely a “true friend” of the famous actor:
My dearest Ira,
The news of your severe illness makes me wretched. I am beside myself with pain and heartrending. My foreboding has not vanished, you are ill my dear Ira, and must suffer so much and I cannot be with you. While here I am twiddling my thumbs day and night and not able to do anything for you except to pray for you with my whole soul. When I read your last lines to me, my heart almost breaks with sorrow and anguish, because I cannot be by your side to help you; it makes one most unhappy. Who will take care of you since your wife is also ill. God alone can help you, my true friend, he will not forsake you, he will hear my prayers and restore your health. We will count upon his aid.
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- Ira AldridgeThe Last Years, 1855-1867, pp. 5 - 24Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015