A Raisin in the Sun (2 page)

In effect, as Davis went on to develop, white America “kidnapped” Mama, stole her away and used her fantasized image to avoid what was uniquely
African
American in the play. And what it was saying.

Thus, in many reviews (and later academic studies), the Younger family—maintained by two female domestics and a chauffeur, son of a laborer dead of a lifetime of hard labor—was transformed into an acceptably “middle class” family. The decision to move became a desire to “integrate” (rather than, as Mama says simply, “to find the nicest house for the least amount of money for my family.… Them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out always seem to cost twice as much.”).

In his “A Critical Reevaluation:
A Raisin in the Sun
’s Enduring Passion,” Amiri Baraka comments aptly: “We missed the essence of the work—that Hansberry had created a family on the cutting edge of the same class and ideological struggles as existed in the movement itself and among the people.… The Younger family is part of the black majority, and the concerns I once dismissed as ‘middle class’—buying a home and moving into ‘white folks’ neighborhoods’—are actually reflective of the essence of black people’s striving and the will to defeat segregation, discrimination, and national oppression. There is no such thing as a ‘white folks’ neighborhood’ except to racists
and to those submitting to racism
.”
³

Mama herself—about whose “acceptance” of her “place” in the society there is not a word in the play, and who, in quest of her family’s survival over the soul- and body-crushing conditions of the ghetto, is prepared to defy housing-pattern taboos, threats, bombs, and God knows what else—became the safely “conservative” matriarch, upholder of the social order and proof that if one only perseveres with faith, everything will come out right in the end and the-system-ain’t-so-bad-after-all. (All this, presumably, because, true to character, she speaks and thinks in the
language
of her generation, shares their dream of a better life and, like millions of her counterparts, takes her Christianity to heart.) At the same time, necessarily, Big Walter Younger—the husband who reared this family with her and whose unseen presence and influence can be heard in every scene—vanished from analysis.

And perhaps most ironical of all to the playwright, who had herself as a child been almost killed in such a real-life story,
⁴
the climax of the play became, pure and simple, a “happy ending”—despite the fact that it leaves the Youngers on the brink of what will surely be, in their new home,
at
best
a nightmare of uncertainty. (“If he thinks that’s a happy ending,” said Hansberry in an interview, “I invite him to come live in one of the communities where the Youngers are going!”
⁵
) Which is not even to mention the fact that that little house in a blue-collar neighborhood—hardly suburbia, as some have imagined—is hardly the answer to the deeper needs and inequities of race and class and sex that Walter and Beneatha have articulated.

When Lorraine Hansberry read the reviews—delighted by the accolades, grateful for the recognition, but also deeply troubled—she decided in short order to put back many of the materials excised. She did that in the 1959 Random House edition, but faced with the actuality of a prize-winning play, she hesitated about some others which, for reasons now beside the point, had not in rehearsal come alive. She later felt, however, that the full last scene between Beneatha and Asagai (drastically cut on Broadway) and Walter’s bedtime scene with Travis (eliminated entirely) should be restored at the first opportunity, and this was done in the 1966 New American Library edition. As anyone who has seen the recent productions will attest, they are among the most moving (and most applauded) moments in the play.

Because the visit of Mrs. Johnson adds the costs of another character to the cast and ten more minutes to the play, it has not been used in most revivals. But where it has been tried it has worked to solid—often hilarious—effect. It can be seen in the American Playhouse production, and is included here in any case, because it speaks to fundamental issues of the play, makes plain the reality that waits the Youngers at the curtain, and, above all, makes clear what, in the eyes of the author, Lena Younger—in her typicality within the black experience—does and does
not
represent.

Another scene—the Act I, Scene Two moment in which Beneatha observes and Travis gleefully recounts his latest
adventure in the street below—makes tangible and visceral one of the many facts of ghetto life that impel the Youngers’ move. As captured on television and published here for the first time, it is its own sobering comment on just how “middle class” a family this is.

A word about the stage and interpretive directions. These are the author’s original directions combined, where meaningful to the reader,
⁶
with the staging insights of two great directors and companies: Lloyd Richards’ classic staging of that now-legendary cast that first created the roles; and Harold Scott’s, whose searching explorations of the text in successive revivals over many years—culminating in the inspired production that broke box office records at the Kennedy Center and won ten awards for Scott and the company—have given the fuller text, in my view, its most definitive realization to date.

Finally, a note about the American Playhouse production. Unlike the drastically cut and largely one-dimensional 1961 movie version—which, affecting and pioneering though it may have been, reflected little of the greatness of the original stage performances—this new screen version is a luminous embodiment of the stage play as reconceived, but not altered, for the camera, and is exquisitely performed. That it is, is due inextricably to producer Chiz Schultz’s and director Bill Duke’s unswerving commitment to the text; Harold Scott’s formative work with the stage company; Duke’s own fresh insights and the cinematic brilliance of his reconception and direction for the screen; and the energizing infusion into this mix of Danny Glover’s classic performance as Walter Lee to Esther Rolle’s superlative Mama. As in the case of any production, I am apt to question a nuance here and there, and regrettably, because of a happenstance in production, the Walter-Travis scene has been omitted. But that scene will, I expect, be restored in the videocassette version of the picture, which should be available shortly. It is thus an excellent version for study.

What is for me personally, as a witness to and sometime participant in the foregoing events, most gratifying about the current revival is that today, some twenty-nine years after Lorraine Hansberry, thinking back with disbelief a few nights after the opening of
Raisin
, typed out these words—

—her play is not only being done, but that more than she had ever thought possible—and more clearly than it ever has been before—it is being “understood.”

Yet one last point that I must make because it has come up so many times of late. I have been asked if I am not surprised that the play still remains so contemporary, and isn’t that a “sad” commentary on America? It is indeed a sad commentary, but the question also assumed something more: that it is the topicality of the play’s immediate events—i.e., the persistence of white opposition to unrestricted housing and the ugly manifestations of racism in its myriad forms—that keeps it alive. But I don’t believe that such alone is what explains its vitality at all. For though the specifics of social mores and societal patterns will always change, the decline of the “New England territory” and the institution of the traveling salesman does not, for example, “date”
Death of a Salesman
, any more than the fact that we now recognize
love
(as opposed to interfamilial politics) as a legitimate basis for marriage obviates
Romeo and Juliet
. If we ever reach a time when the racial madness that afflicts America is at last truly behind us—as obviously
we must
if we are to survive in a world composed four-fifths of peoples of color—then I believe
A Raisin in the Sun
will remain no less pertinent. For at the deepest level it is not
a specific situation but the human condition, human aspiration, and human relationships—the persistence of dreams, of the bonds and conflicts between men and women, parents and children, old ways and new, and the endless struggle against human oppression, whatever the forms it may take, and for individual fulfillment, recognition, and liberation—that are at the heart of such plays. It is not surprising therefore that in each generation we recognize ourselves in them anew.

Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.
October 1988

In addition to individuals and institutions recalled above and in the American Playhouse and Broadway credits—and the many others too numerous to record who have contributed to the current revival—I wish especially to thank:

• Gene Feist and Todd Haimes of the Roundabout Theatre, without whom what followed could never have been;
  
• Burt D’Lugoff, Howard Hausman, Alan Bomser, and Seymour Baldash, whose support and critical judgment have been invaluable;
  
• Jaki Brown, Toni Livingston, and Josephine Abady, who first dared to dream and then to break the first ground to bring
  Raisin
  to television;
  
• Esther Rolle and all in the Roundabout
  Raisin
  “family” whose unwavering commitment through three on-again, off-again, touch-and-go years were the rock on which the production stood;
  
• Danny Glover, whose name, alongside Ms. Rolle’s, made the production possible but did not prepare one for the magnificent actuality of his work;
  
• David M. Davis and Lindsay Law of American Playhouse; Ricki Franklin, Phylis Geller, and Samuel J. Paul of KCET/Los Angeles; and David Loxton and WNET/New York—who extended every cooperation and maximum freedom for us to develop and produce the television production as we saw it; and
  
• Producer Chiz Schultz and co-producer Steve Schwartz, who brought to the new incarnation not only impeccable judgment and assured expertise, but an integrity of caring dedication to the playwright’s vision and text that one meets rarely, if ever, at the crossroads of art and commerce.
  

I regret that there is not the space to name here, too, each of the wonderful actors, understudies, designers, technicians,
and staff of both the Roundabout and television productions who do not appear in the Playhouse credits, but whose contributions and spirits are joined to those of their colleagues on screen. I am indebted to them all.

And, finally, two in a place by themselves:

R.N.
1988