by Kyle A. Thomas
Photo by Michael Brosilow
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a monumental American drama. To craft a review of the play is akin to writing a critique of the Statue of Liberty; capturing in just a few words the history, contexts, and meaningfulness of a work of art that transcends its own time and any single American perspective. And like the Statue of Liberty, Hansberry’s work stands to represent the promise of America—the so-called “American Dream.” But, while the Statue of Liberty is specifically positioned to welcome those who would seek to realize that dream, the dramatic force of A Raisin in the Sun is located in each character’s struggle to situate their humanity and their hopes in concert with accessing the freedom to dream in American society.
What makes A Raisin in the Sun one of the most important theatrical works of twentieth-century America is Lorraine Hansberry’s expert weaving of race, identity, and capitalism into the human condition each of her characters must wrestle with as they navigate a plot that unfolds with increasing speed and implication for access to the American Dream. Each individual pushes against systemic forces that affect the social bonds of their family and community. But it is exactly those forces—family and community—that spur each character to action, reinforcing the importance of social bonds in the formation of individual identities and how those bonds hold the power to shape individual dreams into personal realities. In short, A Raisin in the Sun is a full-throated critique of the privilege to dream when America robs so many of their ability to sleep soundly.
In their production of A Raisin in the Sun, The Court Theatre has delivered magnificently on Lorraine Hansberry’s critique of the American Dream. Surrounded by archival images of Chicago’s South Side from the middle of the twentieth century, the scenic and lighting designs (by Andrew Boyce and Maximo Grano De Oro, respectively) capture a domestic space beset by societal disjunction—a piecemeal home made more of love and persistence than purposeful accommodation. Under Gabrielle Randle-Bent’s brilliant direction, the space provides a view into the marginalia of the family’s life. Characters who exit the main living area are still visible and remain an active memory of what has just occurred and hold potential for what may still come. Furthermore, the performance allows space for the margins of each character to breathe. For example, at the top of the show—long before any word of dialogue is uttered—we are awakened to a new day with each character as they exit their dreams and prepare for the work ahead. The ends of scenes lovingly linger on the finality of a final moment, allowing the implications that await to unsettle us as much as they have clearly unsettled the characters within the story. Though, at times, the punctuation of modern music in the transitions belies that affective lingering with an artificial sentimentality, nevertheless, what we are able to witness on the margins of the dramatic action provides poignant insight into the familial struggles, shaping our perception of what dreams, or nightmares, may come.
The story at the heart of the play follows the Younger family. The matriarch, Lena Younger (Shanésia Davis), is the empathetic core of the family and its travails—and Davis brings a soft power to the role that feels present in every interaction she has, culminating in a climactic moment that, like Lena, will make you feel weak in the knees. The play centers on her decision about what to do with a life insurance payment from Lena’s late husband. It’s no huge fortune, but it is a life-changing amount of money that leaves everyone dreaming about what might be once the check arrives.
Lena’s two children, Walter Lee (Brian Keys) and Beneatha (Martasia Jones), both hope that their mother will use the money to help them achieve their own aspirations. Walter Lee hangs his entrepreneurial hopes on opening a liquor store and Beneatha hopes to see her dreams of completing medical school come to fruition. Brian Keys and Martasia Jones bring a strong familial rapport to their roles, playing off each other with a sibling kinship that feels authentically strained under the gendered social pressures they both feel—culminating in a ritualized dance that is a cathartic expression of their internalized frustrations.
Walter Lee, as magnetically portrayed by Keys, is a dynamically construed, but deeply flawed, individual; a son, brother, husband, and father who is palpably caught in the push-and-pull of dreaming to make something of himself and providing for his family, like his late father. Jones, in beautifully dissonant, but balanced, polyphony, brings a firecracker energy to Beneatha—at once completely contained in her combustibility and yet infinitely watchable when set to light. With a general consternation toward courtship, her entertaining attitude toward the affections of her longtime beau, George Murchison (Charles Andrew Gardner), and an increasing interest in the Pan-African movement as expressed by her Nigerian classmate, Joseph Asagai (Eliott Johnson), become poignant commentaries on African-American identity and gender relationships. Kierra Bunch packs a quietly powerful punch in her portrayal of Ruth Younger, Walter Lee’s wife and mother to Travis Younger (Di’Aire Wilson). She almost exists on the margins of the dramatic action, but in The Court’s production, we are witness to the inescapable suffocation and confinement she feels—punctuated brilliantly by Bunch in heartbreaking moments where she attempts to catch her metaphorical breath. Altogether, the ensemble of actors work together like a chamber orchestra, taking a piece of music from a bygone era and playing it again, but with a new soul.
The Court Theatre has produced a triumph of the monumental sort. To say less is to belittle the magnificence of the collaboration behind A Raisin in the Sun. Whatever your familiarity with Lorraine Hansberry’s important play, this is the kind of production that reinforces theatre’s ability to speak from the then-and-there to the here-and-now, and beyond. A Raisin in the Sun plays through March 9th at the Court Theatre (5535 S. Ellis Ave). Call (773) 753-4472 or visit www.CourtTheatre.org for more information and to purchase tickets.