Raisin In The Sun
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
8 April 2014
4 Stars
It is often the case that people leave theatrical productions at interval. There can be many reasons for this. Tonight, over twenty people walked out of the revival of Raisin In The Sun now playing at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway. All of those who departed were white and over the age of 40. Some of them said things like “I don’t need to see that on stage” and “What a pile of ****”. Four people agreed with the sentiment “Back to Florida where this **** doesn’t happen”.
Honestly.
It’s 2014.
Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin In The Sun was first produced on Broadway in 1964. She was the first African American woman to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Her play was a momentous achievement.
It still is.
There are very few plays which deal with the lives of African Amercians in the USA. This one is amazing in every way: clever, insightful dialogue; characters who ripple with fire and indignation, stupidity and strong moral fibre; a plot that never quite goes where one thinks it might; and, more than anything else, a true depiction of the struggle between assimilation, subjugation and an acknowledgment of ancestry.
Looked at another way, there are very few plays which provide such wonderful female characters, woman who just happen to be black. But this play has three of them and every one of those three is a diamond.
This production is directed by Kenny Leon, the man who last directed the play when it was on Broadway. But this is a very different production from that last one.
The play concerns the Younger family: Grandmother, son and daughter, son’s wife and son and others. The action takes place in a small flat in Chicago, after the death of the patriarch. How will his insurance money be spent? Who will decide? The women of the family or the man, the deceased’s son. What does the decision mean for the whole family? What happens when you follow your dream but it becomes a nightmare? How do you reconcile love with incomprehension?
The play deals in big themes, but in a small, intimate setting. But the family represents a microcosm of Negro families all over America. Do they follow the Matriarch model or adopt a Patriarch model in sympathy with the white folk? How do they escape effective servitude? What is the difference, if there is one, between fitting in and standing up for oneself?
Quite simply, it is an amazing play and it is difficult to believe it was written 50 years ago. It seems pertinent, fresh and alarmingly on-the-money.
Everything about this production radiates style. The set, from Mark Thompson, is deliciously worn and in period. The use of a moving stage, one that thrusts towards the future and retreats into the past, is inspired. Ann Roth’s costumes similarly evoke a bygone era.
Leon directs with verve and clarity. Every ounce of humour is wrung from the characters and situation but not in a condescending way. It is organic, born out of the reactions and actions of a real, loving family.
The three extraordinary women provide the points of an acutely imagined triangle. Whatever the hypotenuse, the sides are love and duty. Dark and gossamer in turns, the triangle resonates as if it were a key component in an orchestra.
Latanya Richardson Jackson is superb as Lena, the grandmother matriarch. Dour, delighted and delightful, she is magnificence incarnate; a fierce of nature, a warm, loving parent and a fierce protector. Plus, she can tell a joke and make a funny observation. It is difficult not to want her to be your own grandmother. It’s a performance of enormous power bad subtlety.
Just as impressive, indeed perhaps more so, is Sophie Okonedo as Ruth, the wife of Lena’s son. From the very first moments of the play, when she is alone on stage with her thoughts, pinched, drawn and tired from her burdens, this Ruth is an essay in pragmatism and sensibility. Okonedo is astonishingly good in every way. I would give her a Tony Award now.
Anika Noni Rose is delightful as Lena’s daughter, Beneatha, the would-be doctor, who is pretty and courting – one man who wants her to accept assimilation with the white folk and another, who reminds her of the truth of her ancestry and wants to revive in her a sense of where she came from. This conflict is beautifully captured by Rose. The scene where she dresses as a Nigerian woman and dances in the native way is truly wonderful – but oddly disquieting at the same time. It should not be possible to see into the history of a person so easily – or should it? It’s just delicious.
As the man who batters and shuffles between each of the three women in his home, Denzel Washington astonishes. There is a lugubrious quality to his performance which transcends his star status; this is a warts and all performance, a brave assault on what a star is. In turns vile, violent, vicious and bereft, Washington is mercurial in a dysfunctional way. His Walter Lee is the quintessential loser, the ultimate clusterfuck – but he is also real, driven by a need to demonstrate his masculinity. By bringing out the inner child, Washington skilfully makes Walter Lee a completely understandable, utterly unforgivable but strangely likeable flawed man. He is breathlessly good.
As the particularly vile racist, albeit wrapped in a sugary and sweet facade of hospitality, David Cromer is vibrant and acutely horrific. His scenes with the family as he tries to convince them not to move to Clybourne Park where Lena has bought a house because the white folk there have worked hard to have a community they want are skin-crawling. Corner nails the part in two terrific scenes. I’d give him a Tony now too.
Sean Patrick Thomas makes the idealistic Joseph, who wants Beneatha to travel with him to Nigeria and work there as a Doctor, a joyful and understandable man. His rival, Jason Dirden’s George, is just as effective: the college boy with white shoes and a suit, the one who wants desperately to fit into modern White America. Both actors make exceptional characters breathe with truth and realism.
Warm and uncomfortable in turns, Hansberry’s play makes one directly consider the lot of the American Negro and contemplate them as equals, people who live, dream, succeed and fail just like everyone else does.
It was an important play in 1964 and given the response from some tonight, it is still as important as it ever was. It suggests that equality and honesty are the tools of the true human – and those that can or will argue with that proposition, well, they aren’t worth thinking about.
A gifted cast makes a tremendously important play vibrate and shudder with joy, horror and the brutality of everyday life. It’s terrific stuff.
