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The biggest misconception about internationally acclaimed — but politically controversial — singer, orator, stage and movie star Paul Robeson is that he was a communist, says Hesston College faculty member Anthony Brown.
“He wasn’t for communism, he was for the common man,” said Brown, who portrays Robeson in an original tribute that he and Denver playwright Andrew Flack put together to celebrate the iconic singer. Beloved around the world from the 1920s to the 1940s, Robeson ran afoul of 1950s Cold War paranoia at home and was blacklisted as a Red sympathizer for eight years until the Supreme Court eventually ruled in his favor.
“Paul Robeson said that he was very fond of the Russian people because of their music and their passion. As a black man, he could identify with that same note of melancholy touched with mysticism,” Brown said.
“He was also impressed with people of color in Russia, who had risen considerably in one generation after the revolution. In America, they hadn’t moved that far or that fast after slavery ended. In Russia, Paul Robeson said he was treated like a full human being. He was treated with full human dignity.”
Brown and Flack will bring their multimedia “Paul Robeson: I Go on Singing” to Wichita’s Orpheum Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday for Black History Month. This combo of historical documentary and live concert experience will be a world premiere of sorts.
The first performance was a 75-minute program of music and narration in honor of Robeson’s 113th birthday last April in his Princeton, N.J., hometown. It was so well-received, Brown and Flack were invited back for a second performance in a larger venue in September.
The Wichita performance, the third, will be the first to incorporate about 20 minutes of video, including new footage of reminiscences secured during a recent interview with legendary, 93-year-old folk singer Pete Seeger, who knew Robeson personally and had performed with him.
In this now 90-minute program, Brown sings about 25 songs identified with Robeson, from gospel to Broadway, in Robeson’s own original arrangements. Included are “Old Man River,” “Shenandoah” and “All Through the Night.” Between songs, Brown will speak Robeson’s own words from his 1958 autobiography, “Here I Stand.”
Flack is in charge of the projection equipment for the video segments while Wichita pastor Junius Dotson of St. Mark United Methodist Church will be guest narrator.
The two show creators hope to have the narration recorded by an iconic black celebrity — such as Maya Angelou, Morgan Freeman or Harry Belafonte — then the show will be in final form to take around the country. The first venues, Brown says, likely will be universities, community theaters and performing arts centers like Wichita’s Orpheum. The eventual goal, says Flack, is off-Broadway, where he has had plays produced before.
“Our goal,” says Brown, “is to show Robeson’s legacy to the world — and not just for Black History Month. That would be too limiting. Robeson was an advocate for peace and fairness, and we want to educate young people who may not have heard of him or don’t know a lot about him. He is not to be forgotten.”
A native of Pittsburgh, Pa., Brown attended Hesston College and the University of Washington and studied psychology rather than music, even though he has a strong baritone voice that would eventually take him around the world as founder of Peacing It Together Foundation, a program that uses music as a tool to bring people together in war-torn areas from Bosnia to Uganda to Vietnam.
“I had wanted to do something about Paul Robeson for probably 20 years and had even put down some ideas in writing. But I didn’t have the right direction until I met Drew (Flack). He looked my notes over and said it should be turned into a full-fledged show.”
Playwright Flack says he was drawn to the project because Brown’s own passion as a peace activist seemed to channel Robeson’s.
“Robeson was outspoken, but he wasn’t a militant. When I met Tony (Brown), I could sense the parallels between their lives. Robeson knew America had to change, and he knew it would change. Tony’s interest in using music to bring people together fits right in,” Flack said.
