A Raisin in the Sun is the gem of the spring season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Insightfully directed by Tim Bond, the Festival’s Artistic Director, this brilliant masterpiece by Lorraine Hansberry was the first play by a Black American woman to be performed on Broadway. The New York Drama Critics’ Circle named it the best play of 1959.
Unfortunately, Hansberry died young of cancer. Had she lived longer, she might have become as important and prolific as August Wilson. Nevertheless, A Raisin in the Sun is a modern-day tragedy that even Shakespeare would probably appreciate.
Hansberry took her title from a poem by Langston Hughes that begins:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up— like a raisin in the sun?
The play pertains more to dreams deferred than to dried raisins. When a Black American family in Chicago receives a life insurance check that will allow them to achieve one of their individual goals, a struggle for power commences. Lena Younger, the family matriarch superbly portrayed by Greta Oglesby, insists that the check go toward buying a new house in a white neighborhood.
Her tormented son, Walter Lee, well played by Preston Butler III, expects to get rich if he can buy into liquor stores. He has a wife and child, and would like to improve their lives. His younger sister, Beneatha, is a good student and hopes to become a doctor. The entire cast is excellent, but will anyone have a dream come true? Don’t bet on it.