Word: robeson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Paul Robeson meant to be a lawyer. He took a two-year course at Columbia University, earned his degree. During that period, however, he performed in a Y. M. C. A. play which Playwright Eugene Gladstone O'Neill happened to attend. So enthusiastic was O'Neill that he went backstage and begged Robeson to act in Emperor Jones. His law course finished, Robeson consented, and made a name as a big actor in Emperor Jones, All God's Chillun, Black...
Singing came into line naturally then; Robeson's voice had always been splendidly full and smooth, contributing immeasurably to the power of his speaking performances. In 1925, with Negro Pianist Lawrence Brown, he gave his first recital of spirituals-another success. Soon after he went abroad...
During the past three years much Robeson news has drifted back to the U. S. Paris. Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest all hailed his concerts. Famed were his performances in Show Boat at the Drury Lane Theatre in London. Because he was a Negro, he was asked not to enter the Hotel Savoy dining-room. He handled the situation with grace and dignity. London, where dark-skinned East Indians get every obeisance, buzzed with sympathy...
...less intelligent man than Robeson might well have come home in a conquering-hero frame of mind, might immediately have flaunted on his programs the classics he has been studying. A singing-actor of the first order, he might even have attempted to go into opera, although no Negro ever...
...Instead. Robeson's returning recital was a modest repetition of spirituals he had sung before. As in 1925, critics complained that such a program tends to monotony, that Robeson's range is too limited to offset it. But the lay audience, including such famed white Negrophiles as Novelists Fannie Hurst and Carl Van Vechten, received him ecstatically, applauded tremendously after ''Water Boy,'' "I'm Goin' to Tell God all my Troubles" and "Joshua Fit de Battle ob Jericho." Robeson will remain in the U. S. for two months, will sing at Rutgers...