Sophie Okonedo and Denzel Washington with David Cromer, Bryce Clyde Jenkins, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and Anika Noni Rose (Photo by Brigitte Lacombe)
Why is it that I can remember the night in 1959 that I first
saw “A Raisin in the Sun.” The answer is simple. The late Lorraine Hansberry’s first
play was wonderful, dramatic and emotionally stirring, but it was mainly the collectively
electrifying performances of Sidney Poitier, Diana Sands, Ruby Dee, Claudia
McNeil, and Louis Gossett that really inspired the audience to stand (an
unusual thing to happen at that time), applaud and cheer for what seemed like
forever when the play ended.
A major revival in 2004, under the direction of Kenny Leon, introduced
this terrific drama to a new audience. The draw wasn’t the play but the presence
of rap raconteur/contemporary icon (P. Diddy) Sean Comb in the pivotal role of Walter
Lee Younger, the young Chicago man whose dreams of becoming a success are
continually being crushed by a lack of economic opportunity. His performance
was commendable as was the production, but far from what might have been. Now
ten years later and Leon
has returned to direct a slightly more focused, yet undernourished, production but
now with a very fine actor Denzel Washington playing Walter.
Acting a role that requires great virtuosity and formidable
emotional fluctuations from desolation to exaltation, from despondency to joy
are certainly within Washington’s
reach, if he still, at the performance I saw, seemed a bit tentative with the
dramatic highs and lows. The same could be said for the rest of cast as they
appeared to also struggle, although rather valiantly, to take charge of the play’s
incontestable dynamics.
As for play, whose title comes from a poem by Langston
Hughes (“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a rain in the
sun?), it is about an African-American family that attempts to reconcile the purchase
of a house in a white neighborhood, cope with racism and resolve family
problems. It was and remains a classic forerunner of its socially conscious genre.
Credit the artistry of Hansberry for her plot which is pure honest family drama
without any polemics or stereotypical posturing.
When a recent widow Lena Younger (a softly assertive
performance by Latanya Richardson Jackson) receives $10,000 from her late
husband’s insurance company, she becomes determined to move her family out of
the dangerous south side of Chicago
to the suburbs. Inevitably, Lena’s plan conflicts with
the plans and wishes of the others. The desperate and reckless Walter Lee’s
wants the money to open a Liquor store and the eldest daughter Beneatha (Anika
Noni Rose) has her sights on attending medical school. Dragged into these
conflicted priorities are Walter Lee’s wife Ruth (Sophie Okonedo) who works as
a domestic, and their daughter Beneatha’s two suitors, the rich and stuffy
Americanized George Murchison (Jason Dirden) and the Nigerian student Asagai (Sean
Patrick Thomas), who wants to return to his roots with Beneatha. More seen than
heard but with an obviously open eye and ear is Walter Lee and Ruth’s young son
Travis (Bryce Clyde Jenkins). The only white provocateur is Karl Lindner (David
Cromer), who, as a representative of the “neighborhood association” attempts to
sweet talk the family from making a rash move.
The beauty of the play is not that it lacks archetypal types
but that the characters are so authentically conceptualized and so completely
convincing that they exist beyond whatever social or ideological tract is in
Hansbury’s text by implication. Of course, I would have preferred if director
Leon had pushed his actors a little farther. It is fortunate that both
Washington and the luminous Rose ratchet up the dramatics at key moments.
Also excellent was Okonedo, whose unwavering performance
conveys Ruth’s unflappable inner strength. Thomas gets his well-earned laughs
as the Nigerian student Asagai. While it is good to see the sixty year old Washington
play a character he should and could have played twenty years ago, one can only
hope that the next time he looks for a vehicle it will be one of the great
plays in the August Wilson canon.
"A Raisin in the Sun" (through June 15, 2014)
Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th Street
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