A Raisin in the Sun: Difference between revisions
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'''''A Raisin in the Sun''''' is a play by [[Lorraine Hansberry]] that debuted on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] in 1959.<ref>http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=2083</ref> The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "[[A Dream Deferred]]") by [[Langston Hughes]]. The story is based upon a black family's experiences in the [[Washington Park Subdivision]] of [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]]'s [[Woodlawn, Chicago|Woodlawn]] neighborhood. |
'''''A Raisin in the Sun''''' is a play by [[Lorraine Hansberry]] that debuted on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] in 1959.<ref>http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=2083</ref> The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "[[A Dream Deferred]]") by [[Langston Hughes]]. The story is based upon a black family's experiences in the [[Washington Park Subdivision]] of [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]]'s [[Woodlawn, Chicago|Woodlawn]] neighborhood. |
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==Plot== |
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''A Raisin in the Sun'' portrays a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, an African-American family living in Chicago's Southside sometime between World War II and the 1950s. When the play opens, the Youngers are about to receive an insurance check for $10,000. This money comes from the deceased Mr. Younger’s life insurance policy. Each of the adult members of the family has an idea as to what he or she would like to do with this money. The matriarch of the family, Mama, wants to buy a house to fulfill a dream she shared with her husband. Mama’s son, Walter Lee, would rather use the money to invest in a liquor store with his friends. He believes that the investment will solve the family’s financial problems forever. Walter’s wife, Ruth, agrees with Mama, however, and hopes that she and Walter can provide more space and opportunity for their son, Travis. Beneatha, Walter’s sister and Mama’s daughter, wants her mother to use the money for whatever be her will. Mama does mention she'd also like to use the money for Beneatha's medical school tuition. She also wishes that her family members were not so interested in joining the white world. Beneatha instead tries to find her identity by looking back to the past and to Africa. |
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In the meantime, Beneatha rejects her suitor, George Murchison, whom she believes to be shallow and blind to the problems of race. Subsequently, she receives a marriage proposal from her Nigerian boyfriend, Joseph Asagai, who wants Beneatha to get a medical degree and move to Africa with him (Beneatha does not make her choice before the end of the play). The Youngers eventually move out of the apartment, fulfilling the family’s long-held dream. Their future seems uncertain and slightly dangerous, but they are optimistic and determined to live a better life. They believe that they can succeed if they stick together as a family and resolve to defer their dreams no longer. |
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==Litigation== |
==Litigation== |
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Revision as of 17:26, 27 March 2011
A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959.[1] The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes. The story is based upon a black family's experiences in the Washington Park Subdivision of Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood.
Litigation
All experiences in this play echo a lawsuit (Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940)), to which the Hansberry family was a party when they fought to have their day in court because a previous class action about racially motivated restrictive covenants (Burke v. Kleiman, 277 Ill. App. 519 (1934) was similar to the case at hand. They won their right to be heard as a matter of due process of law in relation to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court held that the Hansberry defendants were not bound by the Burke decision because the class of defendants in the respective cases had conflicting goals, and thus could not be considered to be the same class.
Interestingly, the plaintiff in the first action was Olive Ida Burke, who brought the suit on behalf of the property owner's association to enforce the racial restriction in 1934. Her husband, James Burke, was the person who sold the property to Carl Hansberry (Lorraine's father) when he changed his mind about the validity of the covenant. Mr. Burke's decision may have been motivated by the changing demographics of the neighborhood, but it was also influenced by the Depression. The demand for houses was so low among white buyers that Mr. Hansberry may have been the only prospective purchaser available.[2]
Lorraine reflects upon the litigation in her book To Be Young, Gifted, and Black:
"25 years ago, [my father] spent a small personal fortune, his considerable talents, and many years of his life fighting, in association with NAACP attorneys, Chicago’s ‘restrictive covenants’ in one of this nation's ugliest ghettos. That fight also required our family to occupy disputed property in a hellishly hostile ‘white neighborhood’ in which literally howling mobs surrounded our house… My memories of this ‘correct’ way of fighting white supremacy in America include being spat at, cursed and pummeled in the daily trek to and from school. And I also remember my desperate and courageous mother, patrolling our household all night with a loaded German Luger (pistol), doggedly guarding her four children, while my father fought the respectable part of the battle in the Washington court."
The Hansberry house, the red brick three-flat at 6140 S. Rhodes in Washington Park which they bought in 1937, is up for landmark status before the Chicago City Council's Committee on Historical Landmarks Preservation.[3]
Production and reception
With a cast in which all but one are African-Americans, A Raisin in the Sun was considered to be a risky investment, and it took over a year for producer Philip Rose to raise enough money to launch the play. After touring to positive reviews, it premiered on Broadway on March 11, 1959. Waiting for the curtain to rise on opening night, Hansberry and producer Phillip Rose did not expect the play to be a success, for it had already received mixed reviews from a preview audience the night before, though it received popular and critical acclaim. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the best play of 1959, and it ran for nearly two years and was produced on tour. A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, as well as the first play with a black director (Lloyd Richards) on Broadway.[4]
Hansberry noted that it introduced details of black life to the overwhelmingly white Broadway audiences, while director Richards observed that it was the first play to which large numbers of blacks were drawn.[4] The New York Times stated that A Raisin in the Sun "changed American theater forever."[5]
In 1960 A Raisin In The Sun was nominated for four Tony Awards:
- Best Play - Written by Lorraine Hansberry; produced by Philip Rose, David J. Cogan
- Best Actor in Play - Sidney Poitier
- Best Actress in a Play - Claudia McNeil
- Best Direction of a Play - Lloyd Richards
Other versions
1961 film
In 1961, a film version of A Raisin in the Sun was released featuring its original Broadway cast of Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon, Louis Gossett, Jr. and John Fiedler. Hansberry wrote the screenplay, and the film was directed by Daniel Petrie. It was released by Columbia Pictures and Ruby Dee won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. Both Poitier and MacNeil were nominated for Golden Globe Awards, and Petrie received a special "Gary Cooper Award" at the Cannes Film Festival. However, the film received no Academy Award nominations, presumably to avoid racial tensions.
It was not rated by the MPAA and has a running time of 128 minutes.
1973 musical
In 1973, the play was turned into a musical, Raisin. It was written by Hansberry's former husband, Robert Nemiroff. It won the 1974 Tony Award for Best musical.
1989 TV film
In 1989 it was adapted into a made for TV movie starring Danny Glover and Esther Rolle. This production received three Emmy Award nominations, but all were for technical categories. Bill Duke directed the production, while Chiz Schultz produced the production, which also featured Starletta DuPois and John Fiedler, who had starred in the original Broadway production and the 1961 film version. This production was based on an off-Broadway revival produced by the Roundabout Theatre.
The cast, along with their character names, for the 1989 production are as follows: Danny Glover as "Walter Lee," Starletta DuPois as "Ruth," Esther Rolle as "Mama," and Kim Yancey as "Beneatha."
2004 Broadway revival
There has been one Broadway revival in 2004[6] at the Royale Theatre with the following cast:
- Sean Combs - Walter Lee Younger
- Audra McDonald - Ruth Younger
- Phylicia Rashad - Lena Younger
- Sanaa Lathan - Beneatha Younger
- Bill Nunn - Bobo
- David Aaron Baker - Karl Lindner
- Lawrence Ballard - Moving Man
- Teagle F. Bougere - Joseph Asagai
- Frank Harts - George Murchison
- Billy Eugene Jones - Moving Man
- Alexander Mitchell - Travis Younger
2008 TV film
Another made for television film, premiered on February 25, 2008 on ABC. The cast is mostly made up of actors from the 2004 revival, including Sean "Diddy" Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Sanaa Lathan, Sean Patrick Thomas, and John Stamos .This version of the play was directed by Kenny Leon.
Cultural references
The 2010 Bruce Norris play Clybourne Park depicts events in the same house that take place before and after the events in Raisin in the Sun.[7]
Season 1, Episode 3 of Strangers with Candy is based around a school production of A Raisin in the Sun, and features an excerpt from the 1961 movie as well as Stephen Colbert reciting "A Dream Deferred" just before the closing credits.
References
- ^ http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=2083
- ^ Kamp, Allen R. "The History Behind Hansberry v. Lee," 20 U.S. Davis L. Rev. 481 (1987)
- ^ 'Raisin in the Sun' home for landmark?, Maudlyne Ihejirika, The Chicago Sun-Times, February 5, 2010
- ^ a b Corley, Cheryl, 'A Raisin in the Sun', Present at the Creation, National Public Radio, 11 March 2002
- ^ Rich, Frank, Theater: 'Raisin in Sun,' Anniversary in Chicago, New York Times, 5 October 1983
- ^ http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=13596
- ^ Brantley, Ben, "Good Defenses Make Good Neighbors," New York Times, Feb. 22, 2010.