Like last week’s post, multiple events are involved. Unlike last week’s post, the events involved are similar and connected. They are not only connected to each other but to one of last week’s as well. On Wednesday, I attended an Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati performance of Red Velvet. I’d seen nothing but positive reviews and comments and I’ve now verified them. The entire cast is excellent but Ken Early stands out in the lead role of Ira Aldridge. I’d seen Early before as Phileas Fogg in ETC’s production of Around the World in 80 Days. He was good as Fogg but is truly impressive in the more challenging Red Velvet.

The play is fact based. In 1833 Ira Aldridge became the first black actor to play Othello in London’s Covent Garden. He was not well received. Even though he had been praised for his portrayal of that and other Shakespearean roles in other parts of England, Londoners expected their Othello to be a proper Englishman in blackface.

Lolita Chakrabart wrote Red Velvet in 2012. I got three things out of watching it. One was learning something of a man who, while rather famous 200 years ago, had pretty much disappeared from history and was totally unknown to me. Another was being led to focus on the fact that the racism of the nineteenth century may have been tamed a bit but it certainly has not been eliminated. The third thing I saw in the play was the absolute passion that actors can develop for their craft. I don’t know that Shakespeare productions involve more passion than others but it seems more visible there.

Shortly after purchasing my ticket to Red Velvet, I received an email offering a discount to another play at another theater. The Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is overlapping ETC’s run of Red Velvet with a production of one of that play’s subjects, Othello. Cooperation between the theaters included discounts to one for attendees of the other. The eagerness with which I jumped on the offer was partly due to something I’d heard last week. During the Q & A session at last Wednesday’s Words and Music event at the Mercantile Library, Steve Earle was asked about his favorite authors. He cited a few (including J. K. Rowling) before naming William Shakespeare as the English language writer he most admired. He added that, if you personally didn’t care for Shakespeare, it might be because you’ve only read the words and didn’t experience them in a performance. That made sense to me and, realizing that I probably hadn’t seen a performance of any Shakespeare play as an adult, resolved to correct that. The opportunity came much quicker than I expected.

One night after seeing Red Velvet, with its Othello excerpts, I saw the real thing in its entirety. Overall, it supported Earle’s observation that seeing the Bard’s creations beats reading them. The CSC production uses a modern setting which could be either a plus or minus but which I thought rather neutral. The presence of cell phones, computer tablets, and TV news broadcasts did not intrude on the scripted words in any way although I suppose it could make the early seventeenth century language seem extra archaic. On the other hand it could serve to underscore the timelessness of the themes of jealousy and betrayal. I didn’t know enough to be affected one way or the other.

All of the principles displayed plenty of passion in their “big scenes” but otherwise often seemed to be in a hurry to deliver their lines before they forgot them. The exception was Nicholas Rose as Iago who struck me as being attentive to the pace of every phrase and the timing of every pause.

Overall it was a very good week in which I learned to appreciate William Shakespeare a little bit more and also learned a little about how much Cincinnati appreciates its live theater. I’ve attended a few ETC shows in the past and, while the basic layout remains the same, improvements in the theater itself and the greatly enlarged lobby indicate a solid future. This was my first CSC show which means I never saw the previous home on Race Street. I cannot, therefore, appreciate how big an improvement the brand new Otto M. Budig Theater is, but I can still be impressed with the really cool venue.

Both shows I attended were sold out or nearly so and these are not the only professional and semi-professional theater companies doing well in Cincinnati. Playhouse in the Park (where I attended Marie and Rosetta a couple of weeks ago) just announced that a new theater will be built at the end of this season. Landmark Productions opened its all new Incline Theater (where I’ll be seeing Spamalot on Thursday) in 2015. Although there’s no new theater on the horizon, Know Theater is now in its twentieth season and the Aronoff Center continues to present “Broadway” touring companies and such. Anyone wanting to see a play in Cincinnati definitely has choices.

CSC’s last performance of Othello was March 24. Red Velvet runs through March 31 at ETC.

The spring equinox occurred at a quarter past noon on Tuesday making Wednesday the first full day of spring. That’s when I took this picture in Washington Park as I walked past on the way to the Ensemble Theater.