I am literally awestruck when I enter the house that is The Moorings, the venue of Call Mr Robeson: A life with Songs. This whare is seriously kick-arse with peeling wallpaper, scrim and ambience so thick it’s verging on suffocating. And. And there’s a ballroom that you step into from a sash window on a landing, down staircases sprinkled in glitter. With that sensory overload and a rather portended effigy hanging from the roof (that I am assured isn’t attached to this production)* I wonder where the f**k I have been, to not know of this venue until now.

Sitting down, I take in the set spread across the ballroom: the ephemera of a performer’s life – photographs, programmes; the flags of Wales, America and the United Kingdom – and an accompanying dreadlocked musician (Julian Raphael).

The only knowledge I have of Paul Robeson (1898-1976) is that he’s a singer with a distinctive voice as referred to in a lyric of a Michael Franti/ Spearhead song, ‘Stay Human’ (All the Freaky People), “Baritone like a Robeson recording”. I’m about to be schooled as Taya Aluko enters carrying a chair and singing a Spiritual song: “Nobody knows the Trouble I’ve seen”.

As the life story of Robeson unfolds it’s apparent this man was truly revolutionary with an obvious athleticism (he was once described as 6’4”, 200 pounds of dark devastation) and intellectualism that was admired but – given the history of the United States and the time period in which he rose to prominence as a singer and actor – also feared and then vilified.

While I have no doubt after watching this as to the political significance of Paul Robeson, I do not quite connect emotionally with the performance. It’s just that I feel like I am constantly told rather than shown. That isn’t to take anything away from the performer, the obviously well–researched and well-crafted production, the soundscape, musician, enthusiastic, helpful and lovely producers and an audience who is so very appreciative of the work. I know this, because I watch as one of its members sways with eyes closed every time Aluko sings. There is passion, too, with which many engage during a Q and A after the performance.

The many awards on the worldwide circuit suggest others too, have responded positively. Even understanding theobvious resemblance with Maori struggles and calls for tino rangatiratanga, and that Robeson came to Aotearoa in the 1960s and recognised the similarities, it’s still not quite enough to engage me fully. 

It’s the singing mixed between the talking that really is the strength of this performance. Tayo Aluko has a beautifully, rich voice. It provides welcome respite from the lifetime of information packed into a 90 minute show. And by the way audience members respond, this is why they are here, to listen to Aluko renditions of Old Man River and an assortment of Spiritual songs popularised during that era.

When Aluko breaks into the character of Robesons wife, Eslanda Goode Robeson, who may just be worthy of her own production given her own achievements, that too provides a break from being spoken at.  

As this government prepares to enter New Zealand into a war, there is something prophetic yet also maddeningly familiar in a way (Civil Rights Movement, Race Relations, McCarthyism, “You’re with us or with them”) about Call Mr Robeson: A life with Songs. And on reflection, it’s why I encourage you to see it. At times our understandings of ourselves and the way events shape us, over and over, are deepened and best reflected from outside of ourselves. 
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*Thin plays at The Moorings, 7pm.

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