Paul Robeson? William Shakespeare? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: A prominent actor once discussed William Shakespeare’s tragic character Othello and said the following:
There could be no greater character to play.
This statement has been attributed to Paul Robeson. Would you please explore this topic.
Reply from Quote Investigator: Paul Robeson played the character Othello in London in 1930. He also performed the character on Broadway in 1943 and 1944. Othello became Robeson’s best-known role.
The American Archive of Public Broadcasting contains a video of the April 9, 1998 episode of “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer”. The episode included a segment from an interview with Paul Robeson conducted in 1959. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
PAUL ROBESON: Shakespeare posed this problem of a say black man in a white society in the role that he’s playing. And Shakespeare gave Othello such dignity—he came not from—as he said—not from hate but from honor, from a sense of his own human dignity. And to me, to my mind, there could be no greater character to play.
Below is one additional selected citation.
The website “AZ Quotes” lists a slightly altered version of the quotation. The phrase “no greater character to play” has been changed to “no greater character played”:2
With Othello, Shakespeare posed this problem of a black man in a white society in the role that he’s playing. And Shakespeare gave Othello such dignity – he came not from – as he said – not from hate but from honor, from a sense of his own human dignity. And to me, to my mind, there could be no greater character played.
Paul Robeson
In conclusion, Paul Robeson did praise the vibrancy of William Shakespeare’s depiction of Othello during a 1959 interview.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Dale Crome whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
Update History: On March 15, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.
- Website: American Archive of Public Broadcasting, Date: April 9, 1998, Television Series: The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Quotation spoken at 44 minutes of 1 hour 1 minute, Producing Organization: NewsHour Productions, Washington, D.C. (Accessed via americanarchive.org on September 1, 2022) link ↩︎
- Website: AZ Quotes, Article title: Paul Robeson Quotes About Acting, Categorization: Quotes › Authors › P › Paul Robeson › Acting, Date: No date specified, Website description: Large database of quotations and attributions. (Accessed azquotes.com on September 1, 2022) link ↩︎