The author and actor Charlie Robinson in a 2010 production of Fences at Paul Green Theatre
The late Chadwick Boseman’s stunning performance in the Netflix production of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom notwithstanding, August Wilson’s Fences is probably the most popular of the ten included in Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle that covers every decade of the African American experience in the 20th century.
In late October through mid-November of 2010, I played Bono in the acclaimed play during a production with the Playmakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill. Directed by veteran actress and director Seret Scott, the talented cast included Ray Anthony Thomas, Yaegel Welch, Erik LaRay Harvey, who played Diamondback, the nemesis of the titular character in the popular Luke Cage Netflix series, and Kathryn Hunter-Williams, a PlayMaker and UNC theatre arts faculty member whose formidable HiddenVoices project in recent years has portrayed the painful complexities of men living on death row.
The author as Bono and actor Charlie Robinson in a 2010 production of Fences at Paul Green Theatre
Charlie Robinson played the lead, Troy Maxson, who is Bono’s best friend in the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning drama.
By now, everyone knows that Robinson, a stage, TV, and film actor best known for the role of Macintosh “Mac” Robinson, the court clerk in Night Court, died Sunday at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center from cardiac arrest with multisystem organ failures due to septic shock and metastatic adenocarcinoma, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Small wonder that Robinson, whose career spanned more than 50 years, was a recipient of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Louise Lamont Distinguished Guest Artist Award while working here in the Triangle. With a host of appearances in some of America’s best-known films and TV shows, Robinson was long recognized as one of America’s finest actors.
By the time Charlie Robinson graced UNC’s Paul Green Theatre stage, he had refined the volatile and embittered Troy Maxson character in Fences while working with the South Coast Repertory at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In 2008, he won an Ovation Award for best actor while playing the role. During the play’s month-long rehearsal period and three week run with PlayMakers, he offered the most compelling, nuanced, and layered performance of Troy Maxson that I’ve ever seen. That includes James Earl Jones’ Broadway performance between 1987 and 1988, and, yeah, Denzel Washington’s 2016 work on the big screen that co-starred Viola Davis.
Neither Jones nor Washington matched Robinson’s depth, emotional range, or stunning believability in portraying a proud Black man whose dreams were crushed by Jim Crow segregation.
Robinson’s last performance was Some Old Black Man, a filmed stage production with phenomenal actor Wendell Pierce that London's The Guardian described as “riveting.”
Pierce offered a tribute on Twitter to Robinson, who played an elderly father from Mississippi who is forced by illness to move into his son’s Harlem apartment. In addition to praising Robinson’s work ethic, love of family, charm, and skill as an actor, Pierce recalled his appreciation for a glass of fine wine in the evening.
“I will cherish the work that we created and forever remember the brief time I spent with him,” Pierce wrote.
Charlie Robinson brought that same work ethic, charm, skill, and zest for living to the PlayMakers production.
In between scenes during rehearsals and performances, we had a few private conversations, usually about our lives. I learned that he grew up in Houston, was a member of Archie Bell and the Drells before they hit it big with “Tighten Up,” and that he went to high school with my former wife’s mother. He remembered her name.
“Flip a biscuit!,” I would sometimes yell in frustration before calling for a line I couldn’t remember during the rehearsal period.
He thought that was funny as hell. Flip a biscuit
“Charlie One-Time!,” I would holler at him each night by way of greeting in the dressing room before our performance. He would break open that warm, wide smile, and greet me like a kindly uncle.
Each night when the play opened, Charlie and I would bounce on the Paul Green stage, playing two garbage men and sharing a bottle of liquor. You would have thought we really had been the best of friends for more than 30 years.
Near the end of the PlayMakers run, Charlie left a small card in a pale yellow envelope in my area in the dressing room.
“Thomasi,” he wrote. “Great Work, as Bono! The humanity you found is incredible!
“Flip a biscuit.”
“With Love
Charlie.”
Like Wendell Pierce, I too will cherish the magic Robinson created and forever remember that brief time 11 years ago when I was his best friend on the PlayMaker stage.
With love indeed, brother.
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Follow Durham Staff Writer Thomasi McDonald on Twitter or send an email to tmcdonald@indyweek.com.
