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by Lorraine Hansberry, directed by Weyni Mengesha

Soulpepper Theatre Company, Young Centre, Toronto

October 16-November 15, 2008

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a classic American play Canadians have more likely read about than had a chance to see.  In 1959 it was the first play by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway and the first to give Broadway’s mostly white audiences an authentic glimpse of black life.  The current Soulpepper/Theatre Calgary co-production excels in every way.  It proves that Raisin is not merely historical important but a gripping, insightful drama in its own right.

The story is slight but its implications are not.  Lena Younger (Alison Sealy-Smith) expects a cheque for $10,000 from her late husband’s life insurance.  Her son Walter (Charles Officer), fed up with his life as a chauffeur, wants to use the money to become an entrepreneur.  Her daughter Beneatha (Cara Ricketts) needs the money to continue studies in medical school.  Ruth wants to use it to fulfil her husband’s dream of owning a house.  It is a conflict of dreams that veers towards tragedy, but unlike Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams who worked in the same realistic mode, Hansberry wants to show how people can move beyond tragedy.  

Director Weyni Mengesha draws highly nuanced performances from the entire cast.  Sealy-Smith gives her finest performance ever as Lena, a woman aware that her children think her world-view is old-fashioned but convinced that it still hold a truth worth defending.  Officer’s Walter is a flawed man who lets his frustrations poison his family life but still has the capacity to redeem himself.  Ricketts combines humour and anger in Beneatha’s search for her identity, symbolically torn between the back-to-Africa vision held out by her two boyfriends, the Nigerian Asagai (Awaovieyi Agie) and the assimilationist George (Michael Blake).  Abena Malika infuses Walter’s wife Ruth with both radiance and fragility.  Kofi Payton is a delight as the Youngers' son Travis.  The action takes place on Scott Reid’s hyper-realistic set, including a working sink and stove, that conjures up the shabby dead-end where the Younger family finds itself.  Hansberry provides no easy answers to the questions she raises about racism, gender role and assimilation and at the end the Younger family faces a difficult future.  Their journey in rediscovering the strength that binds them together may be painful but it is also exhilarating.  This production of Hansberry’s classic is something to be celebrated.    

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2008-10-17.

Photo: Charles Officer, Alison Sealy-Smith and Abena Malika. ©Cylla von Tiedemann.