Paul Robeson (124 page)

43.
Evening News
(London), July 19, 1928.

44.
PR Diary, Nov. 10, 12, 1929, RA. ER to CVV and FM, Dec. 6, 12, 26, 1929, Yale: Van Vechten. Among the highlights of the two months in the States were a reunion with many of the Provincetowners at a kind of vaudeville show (in which PR participated) to raise money to sustain their recent move to the Garrick Theatre (“Fitzi” to PR, Nov. 21,1929, RA; Arthur L. Cams to Otto Kahn, Nov. 25, 1929, PU: Kahn), and a midnight buffet supper at the Otto Kahns' at which the guests danced till daybreak (Seattle
Times
, Dec. 14, 1929, report of the party).

CHAPTER
8
Othello (1930–1931)

1.
“R.L.” to PR, Feb. 22, 1930, RA;
Musical Courier
, April 5, 1930 (Paris); interview with PR,
Radio Times
, April 18, 1930 (agreement about orchestra).

2.
Manchester
Guardian
, March 17; Glasgow
Herald
, Feb. 18;
Daily Express
, March 11, 1930. Other papers registering complaints included the Eastbourne
Gazette
, July 24;
The Times
, Feb. 14; the
Daily Telegraph
, Feb. 17; the Bristol
Evening Times
, Feb. 26, all 1929; and the Newcastle
Weekly Chronicle
, March 15, 1930. The single most scathing (and prestigious) negative came from Ernest Newman, who wrote in the
Sunday Times
(May 5, 1929) that the spirituals “mostly bore me almost to tears,” insisting their current vogue could be explained by “causes external to music
qua
music—a sentimental background of emotion derived from our nineteenth century religiosity, dim childhood memories of Uncle Tom and Topsy,” etc.—and took Robeson to task for exercising his gifts on such “wretched material.”

3.
Interview with PR,
Radio Times
,
April 18, 1930 (Slavs); ER Diary, Jan. 18, 21, 24, 1930, RA. Paul Bechert reported in the
Musical Courier
(March 15, 1930) that Robeson's return to Vienna had been “a feast for all,” and that Robeson was given “a royal welcome.”

4.
Musical Standard
, March 22, 1930 (Polish musician); Glasgow
Citizen
, March 3, 1930 (Scottish);
Observer
, Feb. 16, 1930 (Dahomey; trip to Africa); Edinburgh
Evening Dispatch
, March 8, 1930 (talkie). While in Edinburgh, the Robesons saw Joe Washington, a young black from Brooklyn Paul knew, who was studying medicine at Edinburgh University (ER Diary, March 9, 1930, RA; also, Washington to PR, Jr., Jan. 26, 1976, RA).

5.
By far the fullest account of the history and impact of
Borderline
is Anne Friedberg's Ph.D. thesis, “Writing About Cinema: Close Up, 1927–1933,” New York University, Oct. 1983. Thomas Cripps,
Slow Fade to Black
(Oxford University Press, 1977), has also been useful, as was my interview with the film historian Jay Leyda on May 26, 1985.

6.
Friedberg, “Writing About Cinema”; Cripps,
Slow Fade
; R. H. (Robert Herring, one of the core group of
Close-Up
-Pool writers), “Filming with Paul Robeson,” Manchester
Guardian
, May 22, 1930.

7.
Kenneth Macpherson to ER, Dec. 26, 1929 (scenario), Feb. 12, 1930 (acting); Macpherson to ER, March 16, 1930 (“not sustained”), RA.

8.
ER Diary, March 20–29, 1930, RA. H. D.'s biographer, Barbara Guest, has identified as Robeson the character Saul Howard in “Two Americans,” a story H. D. wrote in 1930: “His least movement was so gracious, he didn't have to think things out. Nevertheless with an astonishing analytical power, he did think.… He had a mind, a steadfast sort of burning, a thing that glowed like a whole red sunset or like a coal mine, it was steady, a steady sort of warmth and heat, yet all the time intellectual; he thought not as a man thinks. Paula Howard, his wife, thought more as white folks, consistently, being more than half white” (Barbara Guest,
Herself Defined: The Poet H. D. and Her World
[Doubleday, 1984], pp. 198–99).

9.
ER to CVV and FM, March 16, 20, 27/8 (Montreux), 29, April 22, 1930, Yale: Van Vechten; Bryher to ER, May 26, 1930, RA. Gavin Arthur seems to have stood outside the general friendliness; Bryher thought him “rather lost and silly,” though “nice under all” (KM to PR and ER, n.d. [April/May 1930], RA). Herring, “Filming with Paul Robeson” (honey bees, etc.); Bryher,
The Heart to Artemis
(Harcourt, Brace, 1962), pp. 250, 262. The good feeling all around is exemplified in the subsequent letters they sent each other. “We missed you so much,” Bryher wrote Essie, and Macpherson wrote Paul, “… thanks for the great week, about which we still grow maudlin on the set, putting on Robeson discs, and pretending it's him in person at the piano!” (Bryher to ER, April 7, 1930; Macpherson to PR, n.d. [April 1930], RA.) H. D. wrote Essie (n.d., RA), “We talk of you still just as if you left yesterday.”

10.
In my own viewing of the film, I was struck by Essie's strength and assuredness—and by her powerful gaze. Ultimately Bryher gave the acting palm in the film to Blanche Lewin, “a retiring gentlewoman from the British colony whom we called Mouse,” who in her opinion stole the show (Bryher,
The Heart to Artemis
, p. 262).

11.
ER to A'Lelia Walker, April 8, 1930, courtesy of A'Lelia P. Bundles; ER to Eugene F. Saxton, n.d., RA (“Russian-German”); Bryher,
The Heart to Artemis
, p. 250 (
Joyless Street
); Bryher to ER, May 26, July 1 (“very enthusiastic”), 23 (“exhibition positives”), Aug. 31, 1930, RA; Macpherson to PR and ER, Aug. 9, 1930 (talkie), RA; ER to CVV and FM, Aug. 3, 1930, Yale: Van Vechten; H. D. to ER, May (?) 1930 (“art”), RA. Initially Macpherson had planned to have a private showing of the completed film for press and friends, and Bryher wrote to Essie “wondering whether it would be possible—without involving great expense—to get a small Negro orchestra for the one performance?” (May 2, 1930, RA.)

12.
H. D. to ER, Feb. 10, 1931, RA;
Evening Standard
, Oct. 20, 1930;
Bioscope
, Oct. 25, 1930.

13.
ER to Light, Feb. 18, 1930; Light to ER, two undated letters (Feb.-March
1930), RA;
The New York Times
, May 25, 1930 (Trask); ER to CVV and FM, March 25, April 22, 1930, Yale: Van Vechten. I am grateful to Christine Naumann of the Paul-Robeson-Archiv, Akademie der Künste, East Berlin, who during my research trip to the GDR sat with me to summarize and translate the 1930 Berlin reviews of
Jones
; the specific citations quoted from the Berlin critics come from
Neue Berliner Zeitung
, April 1, 1930, and
Berliner Volkszeitung
, March 31, 1930. O'Neill wrote Essie, “Jimmy told me Paul knocked them dead! I am tickled to death. I knew darn well he would” (O'Neill to ER, April 10, 1930, RA). Dr. Robert Klein, head of the Kuenstler Theater, gave a luncheon for the Robesons which the playwright Ferenc Molnár and his actress wife, Lili Darvas, attended; Molnár failed to pass Essie's critical muster—“he's an ass,” she wrote in her diary (April 1, 1930, RA), “conceited, abnormal, vulgar, a glutton,” though she found Darvas “lovely-looking, very distinguished, aristocratic, intelligent.”

14.
ER to A'Lelia Walker, April 8, 1930, courtesy of A'Lelia P. Bundles: (Wooding);
Daily Express
, June 4, 1930 (“colour bar”); New York
Herald Tribune
, June 15, 1930 (gateway). The
Daily Herald
(Nov. 23, 1923) carried a shortened version of the
Daily Gleaner
interview (Oct. 31, 1932) headlined “Paul Robeson Looks for a Negro Mussolini.”

15.
New York
American
(May 12, 1927) is among the newspapers that reported on PR's ORT concert; the
Jewish Tribune
(July 22, 1927) is among the papers that printed a statement by PR linking the spirituals with Old Testament inspiration. Passing through Poland on their 1930 trip, the Robesons met an Austrian Jew who was a Rumanian subject; while serving for two years in the Rumanian Army, he told them, “they made him a servant, beat and kicked him, and … they are really terrible to the Jews.… Poor fellow” (ER Diary, Jan. 22, 1930, RA). For the plight of the Welsh miners, see Arthur Horner,
Incorrigible Rebel
(Macgibbon & Kee, 1960), pp. 103ff.

16.
PR to Browne, Oct. 6, 1928, UM: Browne/Van Volkenburg (“afraid”); Browne, “My Production of
Othello
,”
Everyman
, May 15, 1930; Maurice Browne,
Too Late to Lament
(Gollancz, 1955), p. 323 (itched);
Daily Express
, May 21, 1930. Hannen Swaffer, the influential
Daily Express
columnist, who knew Robeson personally, offered an intriguing anecdote about the reaction Paul and Essie had to
Jew Süss:

“Paul Robeson and his wife had one of their little arguments.

“The only thing I found them disagreeing about, hitherto, was Marcus Garvey, the Negro spell-binder, who was in London not long ago. Paul believes in him. His wife does not.

“It was when they saw Jew Süss,' however, that the other argument began. When they came out Mrs. Robeson said, ‘Now, don't agree with me this time. I hope you do not think what I thought.'

“‘I thought that Peggy Ashcroft ought to play Desdemona,' said Paul.

“‘That is what I thought,' said his wife, ‘but I hoped you would not see it.' That is how Peggy was chosen.”

Outside of this brief mention by Swaffer, there is no other evidence that I have found of PR's having any interest in Marcus Garvey (see note 36, p. 623). Swaffer, of course, may have gotten it wrong. In her unflattering portrait of him, Ethel Mannin accuses him of being “savagely intolerant” toward blacks and, specifically, “patronising” toward Robeson (
Confessions and Impressions
, pp. 153–56). Interview with Dame Peggy Ashcroft (PR, Jr., participating), Sept. 9, 1982 (hereafter Ashcroft interview); and a four-page typewritten memoir of the production which Dame Peggy kindly prepared for me, Aug. 1984 (hereafter Ashcroft Memoir).

17.
ER Diary, April 15, 16, 1930, RA; ER to Van Volkenburg, n.d. (May 1930), UM: Browne/Van Volkenburg.

18.
Ashcroft interview, Sept. 9, 1982; Ashcroft Memoir, Aug. 1984.

19.
Ashcroft interview, Sept. 9, 1982;
Daily Sketch
, May 21, 1930 (kissing);
The New York Times
, Jan. 16, 1944 (“clumsy”). “This in itself made it more than a theatrical experience, it put the significance of race straight in front of me and I made my choice of where I stood” (Ashcroft Memoir, Aug. 1984).

20.
Ashcroft interview, Sept. 9, 1982.

21.
Ashcroft interview, Sept. 9, 1982; Ashcroft Memoir, Aug. 1984; ER Diary, May 13, 1930, RA.

22.
Daily Telegraph
, May 20, 1930 (skirt dance).
Time and Tide
, May 31, 1930 (spiritual); the “terrific row” was told by PR to Vernon Beste and described in a letter from Beste to Ann Soutter, May 14, 1985, courtesy of PR, Jr.

23.
Agate,
Sunday Times
, May 25, 1930. The reviewer for
West Africa
(May 24, 1930) took particular exception to Robeson's costume, pointing out that when he was finally allowed to wear the flowing white Moorish robes in the last scene, he not only looked but also sounded his best; Ashcroft Memoir, Aug. 1984 (Richardson); Ashcroft interview, Sept. 9, 1982 (costume).

24.
ER Diary, May 19, 20, 1930, RA;
The World
(New York), May 21, 1930 (“started off”);
Illustrated London News
, May 31, 1930 (“little to recommend”);
Truth
, May 28, 1930 (Browne). Browne and Van Volkenburg were additionally drubbed in the
Evening Standard
, the
Daily Mail
, the Manchester
Guardian
, the
Daily Telegraph
—all May 20, 1930;
The Saturday Review
, May 24, 1930;
Everyman
, May 29, 1930;
Time and Tide
, May 31, 1930; and
Sphere
, May 31, 1930. Hannen Swaffer recorded a touching episode in his
Variety
column (June 4, 1930): “I think Paul performed a very kindly act the other night. He called to see me at my flat to ask me to say that the actor who played Cassio [Max Montesole] had been unfairly criticized by some of the critics, who did not know that his part had been cut on the afternoon of the performance, and that, indeed, he had been going out of his way for days to help Robeson, perhaps to the detriment of his own job.” Swaffer also reported that “One London editor walked out during
Othello
because there were Negroes around him in the stalls.”

25.
Week-End Review
, May 24, 1930 (“great”);
Daily Mail
, May 20, 1930 (“magnificent”);
Evening News
, May 20, 1930 (“remarkable”);
News of the World
, May 25, 1930 (“prosaic”);
Daily News
, May 20, 1930 (“disappointing”);
Christian Science Monitor
, June 2, 1930 (“losing”);
The New Statesman
, May 24, 1930 (“kindly”);
Reynolds News
, May 25, 1930 (“great soldier”);
Time and Tide
, May 31, 1930 (“inferiority complex”);
Country Life
, May 31, 1930 (arrogance);
The Lady
, May 29, 1930 (“affinity”). Also
The Taller
, June 4, 1930: “the Moor was not an Ethiopian.” Two additional examples of laudatory reviews are the
Daily Telegraph
, May 20, 1930 (“a fine presence, a beautiful voice”) and
The New Yorker
, June 21, 1930 (“a great personal triumph for Paul Robeson”). As
The New Yorker's
summary comment indicates, the New York press reported capsule versions of the London reviews and, surprisingly, leaned with inaccurate one-sidedness to the positive view of Robeson's reception (e.g.,
Herald Tribune
, May 21, 1930). Moreover, the American critics who attended the performance praised him more fully than did their English counterparts (e.g., G. W. Bishop,
The New York Times
, May 20, 1930;
Christian Science Monitor
, June 2, 1930; Richard Watts, Jr., New York
Herald Tribune
, May 29, 1930).
Pearson's Weekly
, April 5, 1930 (PR's view of play). It's possible that
Pearson's
misrepresented PR's views of the play. Either that, or his views soon evolved. In two subsequent statements he sounded less ambivalent. “There are very few Moors in Northern Africa without Ethiopian blood in their veins,” he told
The Observer
(May 18, 1930), and in a radio broadcast in June entitled “How It Feels for an American Negro to Play ‘Othello' to an English Audience,” he asserted, “In Shakespeare's time … there was no great distinction between the Moor and the brown or the black.… Surely most of the Moors have Ethiopian blood and come from Africa, and to Shakespeare's mind he was called a blackamoor. Further than that, in Shakespeare's own time and through the Restoration, notably by Garrick, the part was played by a black man” (as reported
in the New York
Herald Tribune
, June 8, 1930).