The world will remember James Earl Jones, who died Monday at the age of 93, for his contributions to film, some of which have since become permanent fixtures in pop culture.
Jones will be remembered in New York, however, for his contributions to the theater, for which he received three Tony Awards (including one for lifetime achievement in 2017) and, in 2022, a rare distinction: the renaming of a Broadway theater in his honor.
Jones once recalled that when he moved to New York in 1957 to study acting, his father, Robert Earl Jones (himself an actor), took him to see live performances. In quick succession, the young man saw the opera “Tosca,” the ballet “Swan Lake,” the musical “Pal Joey” and the drama “The Crucible.” This broad range may help explain Jones’ own rich, surprisingly diverse stage career.
For years, the actor deftly navigated oft-produced classics, head-scratching experimental theater, new works by major contemporary playwrights and, later in his career, popular dramas and comedies. Jones made his Broadway debut in the late 1950s, but he also appeared in smaller venues in the 1960s and ’70s. In 1961, for example, he appeared in the Living Theater’s avant-garde, resolutely countercultural production of “The Apple.” In 1965, he won an Obie Award for his performance in Bertolt Brecht’s “Baal” and also appeared in Georg Büchner’s “Danton’s Death” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. In the ’70s, he was Hickman in “The Iceman Cometh,” and in the ’80s he appeared in two dramas by South African playwright Athol Fugard — all three on Broadway.
Here are five productions that reflect Jones' astonishing range and his dedication to the theater.
1961
'The Blacks'
A cast of unknowns, including Jones, Cicely Tyson, Maya Angelou, Roscoe Lee Browne and Louis Gossett Jr., starred in this explosive work by French writer Jean Genet. An experimental look at power and oppression that featured some black actors donning white masks, “The Blacks” made its New York premiere in 1961 at St. Mark’s Playhouse in Manhattan’s East Village. In a little over a week, Howard Taubman of DailyExpertNews wrote not one but two glowing reviews of the production, praising it as “one of the most stimulating evenings that Broadway or Off Broadway has to offer” and calling it an event “on every level that matters.”
1964
'Othello'
A born Shakespearean, Jones appeared in several productions at Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival and its successor, Shakespeare in the Park. Toward the end of his tenure there, he gave what The Times described as “one of his finest performances” in “King Lear” in 1973 (which is on YouTube).
But the role that would leave a lasting impression was that of Othello, which he had taken on 10 years earlier. “Mr. Jones has a full, resonant voice and a supple body, and his jealous rages and foaming fury have not only scale but emotional credibility,” wrote The Times in a 1964 review.
When the actor returned to the role of the jealous Moor on Broadway in 1982, opposite Christopher Plummer's Iago, Frank Rich wrote in these pages that “Mr. Jones' ease and authority as a military commander seem his by birthright, even as he maintains the uncomfortable aloofness of an outsider.”
In 1967, Jones played a heavyweight boxing champion inspired by the real-life Jack Johnson in Howard Sackler's new play “The Great White Hope,” at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The role proved to be a turning point in his career: the epic drama transferred to Broadway in 1968, and Jones became the first African-American to win the Tony Award for best actor in a play. He reprised the role in Martin Ritt's 1970 film adaptation, earning an Academy Award nomination. Tellingly, Jones followed that breakthrough with a bold Broadway show: Lorraine Hansberry's anti-colonial play “Les Blancs” — ironically, a kind of answer to Genet's “The Blacks,” which Jones had so memorably performed in less than a decade earlier.
1987
Jones' first Broadway appearance was as an understudy to Lloyd Richards in the short-lived play “The Egghead” in 1957. Richards had by then become a respected, successful director, and he worked with Jones again in that capacity, directing him in such shows as the two-hander “Paul Robeson,” Fugard's “A Lesson From Aloes” and, most notably, the Broadway premiere of August Wilson's “Fences” in 1987. Jones won his second Tony for his performance as the flighty garbage man Troy Maxson. One might think that this triumph would have made the actor even more in demand on stage, but his film career took priority and he did not return to Broadway until 2005 in “On Golden Pond” (for which he was again nominated for a Tony).
It’s hard to pick just one of the six Broadway shows Jones appeared in, during what might be called his patriarchal years, between 2005 and 2015. They were all revivals of audience favorites, and he gave strong performances in all of them. Let’s pick the show that earned Jones his fourth trip to the Tonys: his turn as the former president of the United States in the political satire “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.” The production received mixed reviews, but The Times praised him for “digging into his role with a relish you can surely sense from the back row of the balcony.”
Other roles from that busy decade include the loyal chauffeur in “Driving Miss Daisy” opposite Vanessa Redgrave (2010), and a beloved eccentric grandfather in the George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart comedy “You Can't Take It With You” (2014).
In a fortunate move, the disparate strands of Jones' theatrical career came together in what turned out to be his final New York theater appearance: he appeared in a revival of the two-act play “The Gin Game” with Cicely Tyson – his co-star from “The Blacks”, in 1961.
