It is usually verboten to write a review in first person, but I’m going to – because I was a teenager in the 1950s in America, the setting of this play. I remember the 1950s racial tensions only too well and Sydney Theatre Company has done this deeply intellectual, emotional and political play complete justice.
This production of A RAISIN THE SUN flung me back in time and place. The accents, the costumes, the set, the props and the story itself seem totally authentic to me, as are the references to lynchings, the KKK and strict segregation. Everything in this production is honest and accurate. Congratulations to director Wesley Enoch, the outstanding actors and all the people involved in the production.
The set is the main room of the tenement flat with a window to the street below, a door to the hall and two bedrooms, right and left of the main room. We see the activity in the bedrooms through windows, effectively keeping them as secondary sets. The photograph of the deceased father hangs on the wall – he is watching over his family. All the 1950s props, the fridge, furniture, everything is just perfect. Congratulations to the designer Mel Page, the lighting designer Verity Hampson and the composer and sound designer Brendon Boney.
The play is embedded in a very specific time and place yet it is universal – it speaks of the hopes and aspirations of all disenfranchised people. The title of the play was taken from the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” The dreams of the four key characters are at the centre of the play and the source of the family conflict. The Grandmother dreams of preserving the family’s dignity, the sister of becoming a doctor, the wife of moving out of their rat-infested flat and her husband of owning his own business so he no longer has to kowtow to the white man. The play begins after the grandfather worked himself to death and the family receives $10,000 in insurance money. “The money epitomises the hope and dignity of the family while signifying the divisive power of money”, says Wikipedia. There are many places on the Internet to find long analysis of this classic – the symbolism, the characters, the history of productions and so on.
The 1950s setting may test the memory for some in the audience. For example, in the opening scene, the mother at the ironing board sprinkles the shirts and then wraps them up tightly. I felt compelled to explain to David Kary, my mystified younger companion, who deferred reviewing the production to me, what sprinkling is. Later, an African student has a brief discussion about Liberia, the west African country. During and after the American Civil War, thousands of Negros relocated to Liberia and the country became a temporary proxy state of the U.S. (I am using ‘Negro’ because that was the proper term used in the 1950s.)
Every detail seems right, from the sprinkling to the big issues – racism, need for dignity, the anti-assimilation trend (afro hair styles instead of straightening kinky hair), the anti-colonialism movement, the growing civil rights movement, the grandmother’s reliance on her religion, the ambitions of the younger Negroes, the humiliation of the husband. It’s a huge interconnecting web of ideas and action tied together seamlessly.
The playwright is Lorraine Hansberry. A RAISIN IN THE SUN opened on Broadway in 1958. At the age of 29, Lorraine won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award making her the first Negro dramatist and the youngest playwright to do so. She died age 34 of cancer.
Lorraine based the play on a very personal experience. In 1938 her father bought a house in a white neighbourhood of Chicago, incurring the wrath of their new neighbours. The community tried to force out the Hansberrys through the courts. The family fought back and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court where TEN YEARS LATER, the restrictions on Negroes living in white neighbourhoods was finally ruled unconstitutional.
I won’t mention how it ends, except to say that the family’s dignity is preserved. You will have to see A RAISIN IN THE SUN to find out what happens. Enjoy falling back in time knowing that there have been positive changes since the 1950s.
Wesley Enoch’s production is excellent. All the actors are outstanding. It’s an all-Australian cast except for the grandmother, American Gayle Samuels. Bert Labonté is the father, Angela Mahlatjie the aspiring doctor, Zahra Newman the wife, supported by the wonderful minor characters played by Nancy Denis, George Nurchison, and Karl Lindner. The child is played by Gaius Nolan and Ibrahima Yade on alternative nights.
Thank you, STC, for letting me visit my teen years for a couple of hours.
A RAISIN THE SUN is at the Wharf 1 Theatre until Saturday October 15.
Review by Carol Dance
Featured image : Angela Mahiatjie in STC’s production of A RAISIN IN THE SUN 2022. Pic Joseph Mayers
