One of the pleasures of an otherwise frigid February is seeing how local arts organizations respond to Black History Month with artistic celebrations of African-American culture. Ensemble Theatre's gift to the community is the remarkable play with music "Paul Robeson", which has enough fire and passion to melt a mountain of snowdrifts.
Robeson was arguably the most accomplished Renaissance man of the past century. With a prodigious intelligence and great soul, this actor, singer, athlete, and controversial activist had enough drama in his life to make up a dozen plays, which makes Phillip Hayes Dean's biographical performance piece all the more challenging. What do you focus on -- and how on earth do you find a performer accomplished enough to conjure him up?
At Ensemble, the answer is a compelling evening of theatre, as channeled through Tony Sias' layered portrayal. Sometimes fierce, sometimes wry, but always infused with an intense, grave dignity, Sias captures the charisma of a remarkable man.
Dean's play is essentially structured as a virtuoso solo given in direct address to the audience, with Robeson reminiscing about his life and career on the eve of his being honored at age 75 at a Carnegie Hall gala. The soliloquy is accompanied throughout by an onstage pianist -- in this case, the accomplished Lavert Stuart -- which creates the opportunity for soaring moments of song and a subtle musical underscoring. Assisted by vocal coach John Fleming, Sias has transformed his light baritone into an instrument with a powerful vibrato and rumbling bass notes. He's not 100% successful in the illusion: he doesn't really have the bottom for "Old Man River", and the torrent of exposition occasionally twists up his tongue. But there are times -- especially when attacking a spiritual like "Balm in Gilead", a Shakespeare sonnet, or a speech from "Othello" -- the audience feels the thrilling conviction that it has come from the great man himself.
Director Sarah May's production is a model of elegant simplicity, where shifts in time and place happen through actorly transformation and subtle shifts in Laura MacLaughlin's light design. Calvin Knight's evocative set is reminiscent of an intimate concert hall -- a gleaming grand piano, framed in a golden proscenium arch and warmly lit by candelabra sconces, with stylized bust of Robeson presiding over the scene like a tutelary spirit. Appearing in immaculate tuxedos, the two performers are set off like two burnished jewels.
The play itself is a whirlwind tour through decades of pioneering territory: from Robeson's days playing "the intelligent Negro" at Rutgers University, his struggles as a lawyer, his birth as an actor, his international concert career, his burgeoning work as an anti-colonialist, to his HUAC appearance.
It's a profoundly American story: inspiring, infuriating, complex, tragic, and transcendent -- and one everyone should know.