Scarce historical essay on the 19th century African American actor, written by an African American writer, and published by an African American printer (Robert Lewis Pendleton, husband of the writer Leila Amos Pendleton.) Frontispiece illustration of Aldridge in costume as Othello.
Peyton surveys the existing literature on Aldridge, noting that popular biographical sketches left a gap between his early apprenticeship as a carpenter in Maryland and his emergence on the English stage years later: a narrative that “says nothing of his opportunities, his preparation and his struggles.” Peyton reconstructs Aldridge’s youth and early career from contemporary interviews, giving a fuller account of the racist audience reception in America that led him to Europe. Notably, Peyton accepts as true the story of the actor’s early childhood in Senegal; later biographers concluded that Aldridge invented this background as part of his showmanship and self-mythologizing. In a lengthy discussion of his starring role in Aphra Behn’s “Oronooko,” Peyton considers the special problem for the actor of accurately representing an African prince — as written by an English writer — with “no literature or traditions to respond to his inquiry for instruction and guidance.” Peyton’s analysis of Behn’s text and Aldridge’s choices lead him to conclude that Aldridge achieved a depth of psychological realism beyond the reach of even Edmund Kean.
Peyton gives a glowing account of Aldridge’s many European successes – association with Alexandre Dumas; a second marriage to a Swedish baroness – until his death in 1867, just as “[p]rejudiced America was now in a mood to acknowledge the worth of a man who was forced to leave her shores to obtain an opportunity.” OCLC locates 11 holdings.
