Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race
- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Note on Shakespeare Editions
- Chapter 1 Did the Concept of Race Exist for Shakespeare and His Contemporaries?
- Chapter 2 The Materials of Race
- Chapter 3 Barbarian Moors
- Chapter 4 Racist Humor and Shakespearean Comedy
- Chapter 5 Race in Shakespeare’s Histories
- Chapter 6 Race in Shakespeare’s Tragedies
- Chapter 7 Experimental Othello
- Chapter 8 Flesh and Blood
- Chapter 9 Was Sexuality Racialized for Shakespeare?
- Chapter 10 The Tempest and Early Modern Conceptions of Race
- Chapter 11 Shakespeare, Race, and Globalization
- Chapter 12 How to Think Like Ira Aldridge
- Chapter 13 What Is the History of Actors of Color Performing in Shakespeare in the UK?
- Chapter 14 Actresses of Color and Shakespearean Performance
- Chapter 15 Othello
- Chapter 16 Are Shakespeare’s Plays Racially Progressive?
- Chapter 17 How Have Post-Colonial Approaches Enriched Shakespeare’s Works?
- Chapter 18 Is It Possible to Read Shakespeare through Critical White Studies?
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 14 - Actresses of Color and Shakespearean Performance
The Question of Reception
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 February 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race
- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Note on Shakespeare Editions
- Chapter 1 Did the Concept of Race Exist for Shakespeare and His Contemporaries?
- Chapter 2 The Materials of Race
- Chapter 3 Barbarian Moors
- Chapter 4 Racist Humor and Shakespearean Comedy
- Chapter 5 Race in Shakespeare’s Histories
- Chapter 6 Race in Shakespeare’s Tragedies
- Chapter 7 Experimental Othello
- Chapter 8 Flesh and Blood
- Chapter 9 Was Sexuality Racialized for Shakespeare?
- Chapter 10 The Tempest and Early Modern Conceptions of Race
- Chapter 11 Shakespeare, Race, and Globalization
- Chapter 12 How to Think Like Ira Aldridge
- Chapter 13 What Is the History of Actors of Color Performing in Shakespeare in the UK?
- Chapter 14 Actresses of Color and Shakespearean Performance
- Chapter 15 Othello
- Chapter 16 Are Shakespeare’s Plays Racially Progressive?
- Chapter 17 How Have Post-Colonial Approaches Enriched Shakespeare’s Works?
- Chapter 18 Is It Possible to Read Shakespeare through Critical White Studies?
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
African American actresses apparently appeared in Shakespeare productions for New York’s African Company in 1821. But after the suppression of the company and for the rest of the century the only other records that seem to survive of black actresses’ public Shakespearean performances describe recitals of speeches from the plays. Despite the recognized talent of two later black Shakespearean elocutionists, Henrietta Vinton Davis and Adrienne McLean Herndon, neither ever appeared in a full Shakespeare production – a prohibition pointing to the belief that black women were manifestly incapable of embodying Shakespearean meanings. Such representational policing operated within the period’s violently reactionary anti-blackness, and both actresses fashioned responses to it, with Davis eventually leaving the stage altogether for pan-African political organizing with Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association. Herndon, however, began a tradition of Shakespeare productions at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), soliciting new audiences and authorizing black women as Shakespeareans.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race , pp. 208 - 222Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021