Performing Protest in Cross-Cultural Spaces: Paul Robeson and Othello

Robert Sawyer

doi:10.1515/mstap-2017-0006

Authors

Robert Sawyer East Tennessee State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1515/mstap-2017-0006

Keywords:

Paul Robeson, Othello, Savoy Theatre, Margaret Webster, Spanish Civil War, Henri Lefebvre, Peggy Ashcroft, All God’s Chillun Got Wings, “Ol’ Man River”, Show Boat, Josè Ferrer, Paul Connerton, commemoration, fascism, protest

Abstract

When the famous African-American actor and singer Paul Robeson played the lead in Shakespeare’s Othello in London in 1930, tickets were in high demand during the production’s first week. The critical response, however, was less positive, although the reviews unanimously praised his bass-baritone delivery. When Robeson again played Othello on Broadway thirteen years later, critics praised not only his voice but also his acting, the drama running for 296 performances. My argument concerning Robeson uses elements first noted by Henri Lefebvre in his seminal work, The Production of Space, while I also draw on Paul Connerton’s work on commemorative practices. Using spatial and memorial theories as a backdrop for examining his two portrayals, I suggest that Robeson’s nascent geopolitical awareness following the 1930 production, combined with his already celebrated musical voice, allowed him to perform the role more dramatically in 1943.

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Author Biography

Robert Sawyer, East Tennessee State University

Robert Sawyer is Professor of English at East Tennessee State University, where he teaches Shakespeare, Victorian Literature, and Literary Criticism. Author of Victorian Appropriations of Shakespeare (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2003), he is also co-editor of Shakespeare and Appropriation (Routledge, 1999), and Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare (Palgrave, 2001). His book entitled Marlowe and Shakespeare: The Critical Rivalry will be published by Palgrave in the summer of 2017, and his next book project, “Shakespeare between the World Wars” will be published in 2018.

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