A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun won the 1959 New York Drama Critics Circle Award after opening on Broadway, 11 March 1959, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre to instant critical and popular success. Hansberry's first produced play, realistic in style, dramatizes the struggles and frustrations of a multigenerational, African American, working-class family living in a cramped apartment on Chicago's South Side. An insurance benefit of ten thousand dollars paid on the death of Walter, Sr., becomes the source of conflict within the Younger family, as Mama Lena Younger, his widow/beneficiary and matriarch, and her son, Walter Lee Younger, argue over its use. Their debate reveals fundamental differences in values and ponders the relationship of material wealth to human dignity. An authentic portrayal of the economic dilemma and spiritual resilience of African Americans, the play captured the urgent voice of the civil rights movement and catapulted its author into instant fame. The original cast, led by film star Sidney Poitier, was outstanding, and many of the cast members went on to highly successful theater careers: Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Lou Gossett, Jr., Glynn Turman, Diana Sands, and director Lloyd Richards. The play ran for 538 performances on Broadway and was made into a film, which won a special award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1961.

Now a classic of the American theater, A Raisin in the Sun is one of the nation's most frequently produced plays, has been translated into over thirty languages on every continent, and has been produced in such diverse countries as the former Czechoslovakia, England, the former Soviet Union, and France. The play has been published in several editions since its inaugural production. The late Robert Nemiroff, Hansberry's former husband and literary executor, actively promoted this play and her other works after her death in 1965. In 1974, he produced Raisin, a musical based on the play, which won a Tony Award. In 1987, he restored scenes and dialogue cut from the original script and promoted a production of the uncut version that ran at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and was subsequently produced on television's American Playhouse with actors Danny Glover and Esther Rolle in the lead roles.

The play is regarded as a model of stage realism whose authenticity, candor, and timeliness have made it one of the most popular plays ever produced on the American stage. Critics were nearly unanimous in praising the “honesty” and craft of the original production, although a few disparaged it as a “black soap opera.” The play, whose strong affirmation of human potential opposed the drama of despair popular at the time, anticipated the Pan-Africanism and growing militant mood of blacks soon to sweep the arts as well as the country in the 1960s. A Raisin in the Sun continues to have currency because of its evocation of the African American struggle and its poignant exploration of human values.

[See also Beneatha Younger.]

Bibliography

• Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun and The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (contains restored materials to both scripts), 1987.
• Margaret B. Wilkerson, “A Raisin in the Sun: Anniversary of an American Classic,” in Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre, ed. Sue-Ellen Case, 1990.
• Stephen R. Carter, Hansberry's Drama: Commitment Amid Complexity, 1991, pp. 119–130

Margaret B. Wilkerson

Raisin in the Sun, A (1959), a play by Lorraine Hansberry. [ Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 530 perf.; NYDCC Award.] Lena Younger (Claudia McNeil) lives with her son, Walter (Sidney Poitier); his wife, Ruth (Ruby Dee); and their young son in a two‐room apartment in the Chicago ghetto. Lena hopes to use the $10,000 she will receive from her late husband's life insurance policy to move her family into a house in a nice neighborhood. But the house she has her eye on is in a white part of town, and the neighbors send a representative to the Youngers to try and buy the property back. But Lena stands firm; and even after Walter loses some of the money trying to invest in a liquor store, the family prepares to move. Hansberry based her play on personal experience, her African‐American family having gone through a similar dilemma when they tried to move into one of Chicago's better neighborhoods. The play was a landmark of sorts, being the first time an African‐American female playwright was produced on Broadway. The fact that it had a black director, Lloyd Richards, was also a first. Producer Philip Rose found no New York theatre was available, so the production toured to Philadelphia, New Haven, and Chicago, getting such an enthusiastic response that it finally arrived on Broadway. Business was slow at first but gradually picked up with positive word of mouth. It remains one of the finest of American dramas and is frequently revived regionally and Off Broadway. The play was later made into the musical RAISIN (1973) with a score by Judd Woldin (music) and Robert Brittan (lyrics) and featuring Virginia Capers as Lena and Joe Morton as Walter. Hansberry's husband, Robert Nemiroff, produced it and worked on the libretto, which adhered to the original very closely. The musical ran 847 performances at the 46th Street Theatre, winning the Tony Award. Notable songs: A Whole Lotta Sunshine; Measure the Valleys; Sidewalk Tree. Lorraine HANSBERRY (1930–65) was born in Chicago's South Side where her father was an early civil rights leader. She studied at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Guadalajara in Mexico, and Roosevelt University. In 1950 Hansberry moved to New York to pursue her writing career, finding success with Raisin in the Sun but less so with The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1964). After her untimely death from cancer, Nemiroff, also a respected writer, completed her unfinished play Les Blancs in 1970 and compiled a program of her works called To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, which has often been produced.