{"id":6055,"date":"2016-09-15T07:44:10","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T11:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6055"},"modified":"2016-09-27T07:15:42","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T11:15:42","slug":"red-velvet-weekend-theater-treat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6055","title":{"rendered":"Red Velvet – Weekend Theater Treat!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Red

Lindsay Smiling & Sofia Jean Gomez<\/p><\/div>\n

Hop on New Jersey Transit\u2019s Morristown line or jump into your car and speed out to Madison to see Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey<\/a>\u2019s production of Red Velvet<\/em>, on stage through September 25. It\u2019s a knockout! Directed here by STNJ Artistic Director Bonnie J. Monte, Red Velvet<\/em> was the breakout success for London playwright Lolita Chakrabarti in 2012, was nominated for numerous awards, and garnered two \u201cBest New Playwright\u201d awards for the author.<\/p>\n

Based on a true story, Red Velvet<\/em> describes the career of Ira Aldridge (played by Lindsay Smiling<\/a>), an African-American actor who relocated to Europe in search of artistic and personal freedom. In 1833, he was invited to play the title role in Othello<\/em> at London\u2019s Theatre Royal Covent Garden. While audiences loved him, the critics were merciless, and he never played London again.<\/p>\n

Actor Charles Kean (David Andrew Macdonald) refuses to perform with Aldridge and derides his more natural, emotionally true, and modern acting style. Charles\u2019s fianc\u00e9e, Ellen Tree (Victoria Mack<\/a>), understands and immediately adopts Aldridge\u2019s approach. The play\u2019s first act contains highly entertaining scenes in which the Aldridge style is contrasted with the affected, melodramatic style then in vogue, concluding with a key bit from Othello<\/em> that demonstrates his technique\u2019s tremendous power.<\/p>\n

In the second act, the devastating reviews are in, and the conflict between Aldridge and his friend Pierre (David Foubert<\/a>), who manages the company, comes to a dramatic, wrenching climax. Aldridge won\u2019t temper his performance and the critics (and theatre backers) won\u2019t countenance it. Chakrabarti has said the play is about personal fulfillment in the theater (never guaranteed), disillusionment, friendship, loyalty, and betrayal. It is, and all within an invigorating package.<\/p>\n

The Covent Garden debacle takes place against the backdrop of England\u2019s raging abolition debate. Red Velvet<\/em>\u2019s younger characters think slavery abhorrent; the older ones that cheap labor is the foundation of British prosperity. Further, though Aldridge and the younger actors believe \u201call theater is essentially political,\u201d the others believe casting a black actor as Othello is going too far. Chakrabarti does not turn the play into a polemic, but provides useful context.<\/p>\n

In real life, after the Covent Garden debacle, Aldridge became a much- admired tragedian and toured Europe extensively. Thus, Red Velvet<\/em> begins and ends in a theater dressing-room in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a, Poland, in 1867, as a 60-year-old Aldridge prepares to play King Lear\u2014in whiteface. Invading his privacy, a young Polish journalist (Sofia Jean Gomez<\/a>) is determined to interview him; she makes the same plea for acceptance he might have made in earlier times. At one point, he caresses the red backdrop, musing that the velvet is like a \u201cdeep promise of what is to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cast members noted above were uniformly strong and received good support from Garrett Lawson, John Little, Shannon Harris<\/a>, and Savannah DesOrmeaux<\/a>.<\/p>\n

STNJ provides an excellent \u201cKnow the Show Guide<\/a>.\u201d For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit http:\/\/www.shakespearenj.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hop on New Jersey Transit\u2019s Morristown line or jump into your car and speed out to Madison to see Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey\u2019s production of Red Velvet, on stage through September 25. It\u2019s a knockout! Directed here by STNJ … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Red Velvet - Weekend Theater Treat! Red Velvet - a 19th c. African-American actor, a star in Europe, who acted in whiteface. See the play!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[269,366,104,147],"tags":[333,416],"class_list":["post-6055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-drama","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-london","tag-real-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1zF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6057,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6055\/revisions\/6057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}