A Raisin in the Sun
The play was first produced in 1959, and was the first Broadway production by an African-American woman. With a strong cast of Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Lou Gossett Jr. and Diana Sands, the play was a hit and moved the conversation of civil rights in America.
Set in a cramped apartment in a black neighborhood of Chicago, Hansberry's play deals with the American dream, as seen through the eyes of a lower-middle class black family. Pointedly, her title is taken from Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?"
Walter Younger (Poitier) is man overbrimming with dreams. He is a chauffeur for a rich white man, but wants to make something of himself. His current dream is to buy into a liquor store with some friends. He will have the means, because the life insurance check following his father's death is due to arrive any day. But that money belongs to his mother (McNeil), a proud, churchgoing woman, who is more interested in buying a house that will fit her, Walter, his wife Ruth (Dee), his younger sister Beneatha (Sands), and his young son Travis (played by Glynn Turman on stage and Stephen Perry on film).
No one else in the family shares Walter's ambitions. His wife is very suspect, mostly because she does not trust his potential partners, but Walter sees this as the black woman holding the black man back: "That's it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. Man say: I got to take hold of this here world, baby! And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work. Man say: I got to change my life, I'm choking to death, baby! And his woman say--Your eggs is getting cold!"
The play is something of an omnibus for African-American issues of the time. Not only does it address the frustration of the black race's attempts to gain economic equality with whites, but it also addresses African identity. Beneatha, who is twenty and wants to go to medical school and be a doctor (ironically, Poitier tells her she should settle on being a nurse), is charmed by a Nigerian student (Ivan Dixon, who would later star on TV's Hogans Heroes). Beneatha is determined not be an assimilatist, and seek out her African roots. She listens to African music and is put off by her suitor, George Murchison (Gossett), who is an upper-class black who is fully absorbed into the white world. She tells her mother: "The Murchisons are honest-to-God-real-live-rich colored people, and the only people in the world who are more snobbish than rich people are rich colored people." Beneatha even tells her mother she doesn't believe in God, but she gets slapped across the face for it.
But most keenly, the story turns on the house in Clybourne Park. Mama puts a down payment on a small but clean and sunlit home in a section of Chicago that has no black people living in it. Walter and Ruth are incredulous that she would do such a thing, but figure if she's up for the challenge, so be it. But then a representative of the neighborhood "improvement association" pays a call (played on stage and in the film by John Fiedler, who would later be the voice of Piglet). He is full of pleasant charm, and says that problems between the races can be solved by talking (I've read about some of the attempts to segregate Chicago neighborhoods, such as Cicero, where a black couple were burned out while cops watched). The Youngers believe the man is genuinely interested in their welfare, but he then pulls out paperwork and says that colored people are happiest living with their own kind, and offers to buy them out at a profit. Walter, proudly, throws him out.
Eventually Mama will give Walter some of the insurance money so as to let him have his dream, but of course things go wrong, and when they do, the anguish, both reading on the page and watching the film, is palpable. But the ending is hopeful, represented by Mama's struggling plant, which she carries out the door to her new home as the play ends.
The film version, from 1961, also written by Hansberry, and directed by Daniel Petrie, is powerful stuff. All of the stage cast are back (except for the part of the young boy), and much of it is filmed in their apartment. This gives it a stagey feel, but Petrie's use of camera helps alleviate any claustrophobia. A few scenes open up the action, particularly the one in which the family visits their new house in Clybourne Park, which of course couldn't be on the stage. Watching this scene is heartbreaking, as we see the smiles of the new owners, especially of the seven-year-old boy, who is too young to understand why his neighbors will do anything to keep him out. As pointed out, the Youngers have six generations in America, much more than the ancestors of the Germans and Irish and Italians who make up the neighborhood currently consists of, but the fear of diminished property values drives the morality of the situation.
The actors in the film are all great. McNeil was nominated for a Golden Globe, and she is excellent, not taking the character into a stereotype of the older black churchwoman. This is party due to the writing, which gives her a sense of humor. Poitier, who would later get pigeon-holed in "dignified" black roles, is brilliant as the temperamental Walter, who feels misunderstood, burns to better himself, but when denied, seeks solace in drink. And Dee and Sands are also first-rate as woman of different generations, whose hopes go in different directions.
A Raisin in the Sun also reminds me of the magic rhythms of black speech, which though aren't necessarily grammatically correct, nonetheless is rich with meter and passion. I can't help but laugh when terms like "raggedy-ass" are used, and who would have thought that "Miss Thing" was in use in 1959?
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