Robeson, Paul

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    Othello and Iago, a Marriage Made in Both Heaven and Hell

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    Who exactly is in charge here?Is it the strutting general or his self-effacing ensign? The man celebrated for his “free and open nature” or the sociopath who keeps stockpiling secrets?That question has been occupying the minds of theatergoers and readers since Shakespeare’s “Othello” was first performed in London in the early 17th century. And it is doubtless being puzzled over by audiences at the star-charged Broadway revival of this tragedy of homicidal jealousy, with Denzel Washington in the title role of the noble Moorish warrior and Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago, his eminently credible, equally duplicitous aide-de-camp.On the most basic level, the answer is obvious. (For those unfamiliar with “Othello,” serious spoilers follow.) It’s the resentment-riddled Iago, the ultimate disgruntled employee, who takes command of his commander, and pretty much everyone in his orbit, in coldblooded pursuit of revenge. It’s Iago who gives the orders to his boss, while making his boss believe otherwise. And it’s Iago who’s still alive at the end.Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington in the play’s latest revival, on Broadway through June 8.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut in another sense, the contest has never been that easy to call. Put it this way: After you’ve seen it, who is it who dominates your thoughts? Which character’s point of view wound up ruling the night? In other words, who owned the production?Othello may have the glamour, the grand poetic speeches and a death scene for the ages. But there is a reason that Laurence Olivier, who would play the part blackface to divisive effect in the early 1960s, would worry about having “the stage stolen from me by some young and brilliant Iago.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Review: ‘Robeson’ Illuminates a Titanic Artist and Activist

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      Davóne Tines plays Paul Robeson in a solo show on Little Island that weaves together the words and music of this American hero to tell his story.“God gave me the voice that people want to hear,” Paul Robeson, the great African American singer, actor and activist, told the Black newspaper “The New York Age” in a 1949 interview.Aware of his powers and obliged by his influence, Robeson inserted himself into an incredibly fraught moment in American history. His powerful advocacy for the rights of Black and working-class Americans made him a hero, but his political leanings put him at odds with the prevailing anti-Communist forces in Congress, which eventually impeded his career. Robeson’s fame was global, however, and he had plenty of opportunities abroad — until his U.S. passport was revoked because he would not disavow membership in the Communist Party in writing. He landed before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1956, and although he was unafraid of being a lightning rod, he was wearied by it, too.Paul Robeson in a 1925 portrait. During the red-baiting years, his politics drew criticism that he was a Communist, and his income plummeted.Edward Gooch Collection/Getty ImagesRobeson joined a protest in favor of fair employment legislation outside the White House in 1950.Associated PressToday, the legacy of Robeson’s divine bass-baritone voice and its oratorial capaciousness has outlasted the political tarring and feathering. There is no contemporary analogue for Robeson, an artist in a classical medium who became a household name and leveraged his fame to drive a public conversation around peace and justice. (Yo-Yo Ma, the beloved cellist who created the multicultural Silk Road Project, arguably comes closest, but without the controversy.)Davóne Tines, a bass-baritone himself, pays tribute to that legacy in “Robeson,” a new one-man show at the Amph on Little Island that weaves together snippets of Robeson’s words with songs associated with him. On Friday night, the straightforward appeal of a popular-song recital collided with oblique, fractured references to Robeson’s life, cracking open a fictionalized glimpse into the emotional turmoil of a man who was seen as an impenetrable “titan,” as Tines put it. It was a vigorously played, at times frustrating show, carried aloft by Tines’s fiery assurance.Initially, the show’s structure seemed transparent enough. Tines’s renditions of songs like the labor anthem “Joe Hill,” which he delivered with confident smoothness, were interspersed with Robeson’s words from newspaper editorials, television interviews and onstage remarks. Dressed in a Carnegie Hall-ready tuxedo, Tines began with an admirable, if a bit woolly, vocal impersonation of the era-defining singer, emphasizing a deep well of sound.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Paul Robeson’ Review: A Tribute to an Entertainment Titan

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      The film’s subtitle is drawn from one of the performer’s quotes in his autobiography “Here I Stand”: “I’m a Negro. I’m an American.”The opening of “Paul Robeson: ‘I’m a Negro. I’m an American.’” offers an unintentional caveat about the 1989 documentary directed by the East German filmmaker Kurt Tetzlaff. Paul Robeson’s rich baritone undergirds archival footage of Black children playing in a dusty open space, smokestacks in the background. The use by the director of a Negro spiritual, however beautiful, swaps whatever joy these kids might have been experiencing (they are at play after all) for a questionable sentimentality around Black life and suffering.But then much of Tetzlaff’s documentary, recently restored and receiving its first theatrical run in New York, casts an aura — admiring and melancholy — around Robeson to the detriment of a more shaded portrait. The athlete-performer-activist’s achievements are well known (gridiron great, Columbia University Law graduate, first Black Othello on Broadway), but in this film, their roots and meaning go mostly unexplored.The documentary shows glimmers of promise when featuring interviewees who had an intimate grasp of the America that shaped but also tore down Robeson. Harry Belafonte turns teary talking about Robeson’s grace. The singer Pete Seeger’s account of white rioters attacking attendees at a Peekskill, N.Y., concert in support of workers in 1949 remains chilling. Tetzlaff aims to dive into Robeson’s mistreatment by the United States government for his activism, as well as his expressed admiration of the Soviet Union and its people — but the movie sticks to the shallow end.Hinted at, but never fully realized here, is a more compelling film about the tantalizing promise Black progressives like Robeson held for Eastern Bloc citizens, like the director.Paul Robeson: ‘I’m a Negro. I’m an American.’Not rated. In English and German, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More