Paul Robeson

This is a filmed stage performance by James Earl Jones of his play on the life of Paul Robeson. Other than an accompanist, Jones performs EVERYTHING in this play--playing both Robeson and the people who are talking with him various times during the course of the play. It's really amazing to see one person talk and talk and act and keep the audience's attention. With no props, either--just Jones discussing various event from his amazing life. It helps that Jones gave his performance such feeling and that his voice is so deep and booming--like Robeson's.

At first, I didn't particularly enjoy the show...but I am very glad I kept watching. It did start a bit awkwardly but soon I found myself being sucked into the show. I was also amazed, as I noticed that the further the show progressed, the greater the energy and magnetism of Jones. It was a wonderful representation of the life of Paul Robeson--who was one of the most transcendent and amazing men of his age. In fact, I would LOVE to see a movie of his life, as it's hard to imagine a Black man earning degrees from Rutgers (where he was an All-American) and Columbia Law, mastering several languages, becoming a huge Broadway, film and recording star and yet was willing to throw it away to do what was right. Well worth seeing--and very powerful.

By the way, I loved the Jack Johnson a--where Robeson was mistaken for the Heavyweight Boxing Champ. This seems to be an inside joke, as in the previous decade, Jones became a HUGE star on Broadway and in film with his portrayal of Johnson in "The Great White Hope".

This play gives an insight into the man. Never perfect but always head and shoulders above others. Paul Robeson is in my opinion one of the greatest Americans of all time and this play gives an inkling of his greatness.

Earl Jones gives a faultless performance as the great man.

I was at a transatlantic concert given by Paul Robeson over a telephone link in 1953 or 1954 at St Pancras Town Hall in London. This was at a time when Paul could not work or get out of America as his passport had been taken away. This play reminded me of the struggles of Paul Robeson.

Having spent the last several days watching and reviewing the remaining films of Paul Robeson I hadn't seen, I have now watched the one-man show about him as enacted by James Earl Jones. Jones is quite charismatic as Robeson whether talking about Paul's accomplishments and trials concerning his outspokenness or singing the songs that made him famous including Robeson's signature "Ol' Man River" with the changed lyrics outside of the musical Show Boat. We also see him discuss his days at Rutgers playing football, at Columbia University studying law, at a law practice where he gets no opportunities, his courtship and marriage to Eslanda, and his confrontation with a senator about his loyalty oath about whether he's a communist. Jones gave a magnificent performance and does Robeson proud with it! So on that note, I highly recommend this taped performance called Paul Robeson. It's available on DVD which I ordered from Netflix for rent.

3 years after Paul Robeson died and many years after illness imposed a forced retirement on him, James Earl Jones gives a mesmerizing and all encompassing one man show about the singer and civil rights pioneer. In fact with that deep voice which has made a considerable number of appearances as well as Jones in the flesh I can't think of another actor who could have brought justice to the part save the late William Marshall.

If they were looking for a singer perhaps William Warfield or Caleb Peterson who sang Ol' Man River on the big screen might have done the job. But Jones does relatively little singing in a show about a singer. It's the iconoclastic civil rights activist that is concentrated on.

Athlete, scholar, concert singer, are enough careers for any man in one lifetime. They're all part and parcel of what was Paul Robeson. Also part of him was an inability to compromise about anything.

It worked well for him when he refused servile movie roles or would not perform for an audience that did not include people that looked like him. That's something I never could fathom. His objections were more than justified. The famous Cotton Club in Harlem which showcased so many black performers of more popular music did not have black people in the audience. Racism with one of the more unbelievable twists.

Who knows what might have happened had FDR lived and a more radical successor with the same global views had succeeded him in 1948. The presidency devolved upon Harry Truman who saw a prostrate Europe open to Soviet hegemony and acted accordingly.

Robeson was lionized and well received in the Soviet Union. So much so he was self imposed blind to the horrible excesses of that state. Joseph Stalin was for him the man who saved the world from Nazism and its racist ideology. No turning back for him and the right wing yahoos who created the post war Red Scare had a field day with him. His treatment was not unlike civil rights pioneer W.E.B. DuBois only DuBois was in newly independent Ghana looking in and Robeson with his passport issue was on the inside looking out.

Robeson was a voice sadly silenced, but what a voice.