STAGE REVIEW : A Heroic Turn in ‘Robeson’

Paul Robeson was the first black football player at Rutgers where he made AllAmerican (and Phi Beta Kappa), but was rejected for the choir because of “a pitch problem.” He became a lawyer when black men were still excluded from the American Bar Assn.

He was the first “real black” to play the title role in “Othello,” making it the longest-running Shakespearean play on Broadway (295 performances). He hobnobbed with the incongruous: George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, Konstantin Stanislavski and the young Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah.

He married, happily, an “African Spanish Jewish Sephardic” named Essie. He spoke Russian and he spoke out--against colonialism, racism, fascism, misguided Americanism--and was harassed by the zealots of the House Committee on Un-American Activities to whom he gave no quarter.

“Always keep a rock handy” was the advice from Robeson’s brother Reed, and Avery Brooks, who opened Wednesday at the Westwood Playhouse in--and as--Philip Hayes Dean’s “Paul Robeson,” makes us feel the soundness of those words. The rock that actor-singer-athlete-lawyer Robeson carried was more figurative than real, but it packed a wallop. All of which did not prevent him from feeling emotionally vanquished at the end of a long and turbulent life, in which he was by turns a star in London, a visiting dignitary in Germany, a soul brother in the Soviet Union, a compassionate visitor in revolutionary Spain and an American expatriate always.

These are many elements to compress into a play and even though Dean’s 14-year-old script is, as it always was, too long and somewhat compromised by dramatic license (the facts were not always quite what Dean makes them), there is real muscle in the writing matched this time by a visceral performance from Brooks as the towering, kaleidoscopic Robeson.

It makes all the difference. That and Ernie Scott’s supportive contributions at the piano throughout and, now and then, in spirited cameos--none more persuasive, persistent and raucous than his composite HUAC inquisitor.

But it is Brooks who owns the evening, aided by director Harold Scott who proved with his 1987 staging of “A Raisin in the Sun” how capable he is at invoking the short-fused emotional current that runs through black American life. He invokes it in an even more urgent and upfront manner here, where events are overloaded with their own dangerous electricity.

Brooks himself does not cheapen the performance by attempting to mimic Robeson but is psychologically transformed to the point that he comes fleetingly to resemble photos of the singer anyway. He’s optimum casting: Tall in a dense, massive way that makes you believe the threat Robeson posed as much to fellow football players as to aggressive German border guards; possessed of a coiled wit and innate irony that sometimes translate into pure fun; able to move his large, lithe frame in a comic dance that evokes the giddiness of the jazz age in Harlem, and blessed with a cajoling, coppery basso profundo that projects great tenderness as much as power. It’s a far cry from Hawk in TV’s “Spenser: For Hire,” the role that put Brooks in the national spotlight.

This coalescing of apt elements and the skillful weaving into this presentation of familiar hymns and spirituals explain the show’s Broadway success in 1988. They enhance what at first would seem improbable: a revival of a script that in previous incarnations had stumbled under its own weight, burdened by lesser talents, excessive adulation, factual fudging and a large dollop of sentimentality.

The sentimentality, adulation, fudging and overlength are still there. Dean simply includes too many details of a life chock-full of fascinating events and ramifications. The second act could shed some 15 minutes and be the stronger for it. But Brooks’ calibrated presence and cunning smile greatly minimize the playwright’s misemeanors, proving once more how much the right actor can do for a part.

There is no question, however, that the main ingredient--Robeson himself--provides unique fodder: a man of deep passion, sensibility, conviction, intellect and courage. Brooks’ performance is a vibrant, bittersweet reminder that those qualities make a hero in an age starved for them, in a country that tends only to decorate their graves.

“Paul Robeson,” Westwood Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Feb. 2. $22.50-$30; (310) 208-5454, (213) 480-3232). Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

‘Paul Robeson’

Avery Brooks: Paul Robeson

Ernie Scott: Lawrence Brown

An Eric Krebs, Perry Bruskin and William Ross presentation. Associate producers Attalah Shabazz, Shay Wafer. Director Harold Scott. Playwright Philip Hayes Dean. Lights Shirley Prendergast. Musical direction and arrangements Ernie Scott. Special arrangements and orchestration Eva C. Brooks. Choreographer Dianne McIntyre. Stage manager Doug Hosney.

BACKGROUND

Paul Robeson (1898-1976) was a Renaissance man--athlete, scholar, lawyer, singer and actor--who had a brilliant if stormy career on stage. The son of a teacher and a former slave-turned-preacher was a star athlete at Rutgers but rejected sports as a career in favor of law school at Columbia. He gravitated to the stage in his final year, performing in London and, in 1924, in O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones,” a role he repeated to acclaim in London and in films, and later in the play “All God’s Chillun Got Wings.” He may be best remembered for his thundering performance in “Show Boat” and for the political activism that aligned him with communist causes. In 1950 the State Department withdrew his passport when he refused to sign an affidavit disclaiming membership in the Communist Party. The Supreme Court overturned the ruling in 1958 and Robeson left to live in Europe. He returned to the United States in 1963 because of failing health, living in retirement until his death.