Paul Robeson’s Love Song, an audio play
Tayo Aluko and Friends

TAYO ALUKO must by now be one of the world’s foremost experts on Paul Robeson. His first play, Call Mr Robeson, a masterpiece of biographical storytelling, has been touring for almost two decades now, with new Robeson stories emerging from fans at almost every performance.

His new play, written during lockdown, hones in on one particular moment in Robeson’s life — the Peekskill riots — rightly described by one audience member as a “seminal point in American history that people don’t know enough about.” But it is also a tale about our current age.

The play opens with an all-too familiar scene — a news item about a young black man being shot in the back by the police while getting into a car. Watching the news are the two modern-day protagonists of the story, Jacob and Adele, a pair of white Jewish siblings in a wealthy suburb of Kenosha, Wisconsin, there to clear out the house of their recently departed mother.

But it is a box belonging to their grandmother that particularly piques their interest. The box is marked “PR” and contains her portable record player along with a vinyl pressing labelled “My song from Paul, June 12th 1949.”

This sets the scene for a flashback to that year, as Robeson returns from a four-month tour of Europe to find McCarthyism well under way. He steps off the plane to be greeted by a throng of reporters accusing him of anti-US sentiments for his speech at the Paris Peace Conference, and soon finds he and his family have been blacklisted. Concert cancellations follow and the local church even bars his son’s wedding.  

The story unfolds as a powerful tale of defiance, solidarity and love, as Robeson gets to see who his real friends and comrades are. The climax is the famous Peekskill concert, held under siege by fascists, with trade unionists holding the fort. Back in the present, Jacob and Adele learn of their grandmother’s involvement in those events — and see the parallels of what is unfolding in their time in Charlottesville.

The play’s focus on black-Jewish solidarity — and the class cleavages within both communities — is timely and welcome.

It serves as a triple riposte, to Jew-baiting conspiracists, to essentialising identity politics, and to right wing attempts to strip Jewish historical identity of its radical and internationalist traditions.

It is a political and cultural feast, delivered with panache, humour and plenty of sumptuous baritone. Highly recommended.

A special anniversary performance of Paul Robeson's Love Song will be performed online on September 4 2022. See tayoalukoandfriends.com/performances.