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Here We Stand
By Colin Chambers
Nick Hern Books £20
236 pages
Dateline: 6th August, 2006
This book is something of an oddity, hanging three mini-biographies
and two long essays, the first on censorship and the second on the relationship
between politics and performance, in a single volume. It is not helped
by an introduction that has a tone which would not be out of place in
the least accessible of doctoral theses.
However, once it gets going it proves a worthwhile read and, ignoring
the footnotes, some sections race along.
In part, this is a tribute to Chambers' choice of subjects and the
common thread in the first part of strong characters who wished to use
their talent and celebrity to promote fiercely-held political beliefs.
In their different ways, they epitomise diffuse areas of art and also
revolutionary political resistance.
The opening biography is of one of the first black men to overcome
the shackles that his race had been held in for so many generations.
Paul Robeson trained as a lawyer but finding that it was impossible
to get work, relied upon his attractive voice and acting skills to build
a new career.
Throughout, he was interested in social issues and chose his plays
and films with these in mind. He will be forever remembered for singing
"Old Man River" in Showboat and also proved to be a
great Othello, making this character a proud representative of his people
rather than merely the traditional jealous husband.
Things turned sour when Robeson refused to give up his left-wing credentials
and appeared to threaten the whole culture of the United States. As
the book puts it, he was "thrown to the lions" for his support
of the Russian side during the Cold War and, as a man who was a representative
of "two enemies in one, the red and the black", was attacked
by the notorious House Committee on Un-American Activities.
Isadora Duncan, the legendary dancer was a real enigma. As Mr Chambers
suggests, she might well have been better off living a century later,
in that her views clearly did not find approval amongst her own generation.
The author does not seem either to get beneath the skin of this unusual
lady, or to prove his thesis that she was deeply committed to political
ideals in the same way as Paul Robeson. While she spent two years living
in Russia just after the revolution, there is suspicion that this was
primarily a result of her inability to achieve her goals either in America
or Europe.
She is perhaps best summed up by a two-word quote from the inimitable
Dorothy Parker who called her "Duncan disorderly".
The last biography is of the little tramp, Charlie Chaplin, an Englishmen
who became naturalised in the United States but whose left-wing political
stance eventually forced him to leave his adoptive country to spend
the remainder of his life in Switzerland.
While everyone knows Chaplin as the silent film star, Chambers presents
him a completely different light, both as a highly sexed lover of young
women and a political animal who would not give up on his beliefs, even
in my face of prospective interrogation by House Committee on Un-American
Activities.
The second half the book comprises an essay on the nature of censorship,
giving numerous examples of the ways in which artists and performers
around the world have struggled, sometimes to remain in work and occasionally
to avoid death.
The final piece links performance and politics and regrettably, appears
to have been written entirely for an academic audience, far too often
using heavy jargon to make obscure points.
Here We Stand might have been far better developed into a number
of separate books rather than a collection of variegated pieces loosely
linked by political themes. It is likely to prove most useful as a source
book for university students and lecturers.
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