BOOK / podcast / script reviews

Title: A Raisin in the Sun

Author: Lorraine Hansberry

Goodreads Rating: ✰✰✰✰ (3.8 stars)

Personal Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰ (4.8 stars)

Synopsis: Set on Chicago’s South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis, and matriarch Lena. When her deceased husband’s insurance money comes through, Mama Lena dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans: buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school. The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama. The Younger family’s heroic struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration.

Review: When the Washington Post reviewed this play and said it was “one of a handful of great American plays,” they were not bluffing. Not only has reading the play given me a better perspective of oppressed groups of people throughout history and the importance of family, but even just reading about the author, Lorraine Hansberry, has opened my eyes to how much of a reality these situations are.

An introduction to the story by Robert Nemiroff, which was written in the copy I read, discussed how Lorraine Hansberry had to cut multiple scenes and points of interest throughout the show in an attempt to even get it on stage. This mostly had to do with the topical points that were brought up and were relevant for the time. The companies finding and producing plays felt as if these embedded messages were personal attacks and refused the concept or advised Hansberry to revise it. Hansberry eventually was able to produce her play at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway with a large chunk of the story missing, but still making sure the message was “understood” among audiences. The important part, to her, was not that Travis or Beneatha had so many lines or were in so many scenes; it was that the whole point of the story that she wanted to share with the public was comprehended. And so it was-- Hansberry’s play was a success and she became the youngest American, the fifth woman, and the first black playwright to win the Best Play of the Year Award of the New York Drama Critics.

Now that I have given you all a history lesson, let’s get into the specifics of the play itself and see what elements make it great. First of all, the clash between the main character’s personalities reigns as one of the most important parts of the show, and I believe it drives the story in a very powerful direction. While Lena (Mama) Younger is a solidified Christian, trying to do the best she can to make her children wise and careful, her children, Beneatha and Walter, make reckless decisions and get stuck in their idealistic mindsets of escaping their living situations. This calls for a lot of wiggle room when it comes to character development and how people react when they’re outside their comfort zone. I believe the best plays are the ones that have characters that cannot be described very easily, and A Raisin in the Sun is definitely one of those plays. Unlike many one-dimensional characters that are featured in old, straight plays or musicals (*cough* Elizabeth from The Crucible *cough*), each character has something they love, hate, fear, believe, value, want, and know about, and these are elements that can be found by simply analyzing the script. These elements make up three-dimensional characters, and Hansberry was not short of any of these elements when crafting each player in the game of A Raisin In The Sun.

One downside to this play that I, unfortunately, have to add is that I found a lack of character growth from some minor characters like Travis Younger or Joseph Asagai. This is simply due to the fact that they had very little stage time and never had enough interaction with the other characters or themes that they could grow from. This aspect is actually quite normal for plays-- authors will add in filler characters that make the plot move forward or make a leading character act a certain way.

Either way, I feel that this flaw does not stop this play from being a timeless masterpiece that will last as long as Shakespeare has. There are too many important themes in this story that just cannot be overlooked, for it applies to our modern situations now and will for a long time to come.