The good news: Lorraine Hansberry’s 58-year-old play A Raisin in the Sun endures as an important American period piece, truthfully depicting the aspirations of a black family in Chicago just a few years before Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Even better news: Nashville Rep’s new production presents an impassioned and sharply nuanced interpretation of the drama, which not only addresses bigotry but is a universally human work about family, foibles, forgiveness, the chance at a better life — and a little bit of hope.
The Youngers live in a cramped apartment on Chicago’s South Side. The clan includes Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, their son Travis, and Walter’s sister Beneatha and mother Lena. In low-level jobs, the family makes ends meet — but just barely. Meanwhile, Beneatha is in college, with every hope of heading to medical school.
Life changes when matriarch Lena receives an insurance payout on her husband’s recent death. (It’s 1959, and $10,000 looks a whole lot sweeter than it might these days.) Should Lena use the money to buy a house for the family? Earmark it for Beneatha’s education? Or as Walter would like, give it to him so he can invest it in a liquor store and gain himself entry into the world of business? The collision of demands inspires a series of critical scenes that push the play’s emotional content into dark personal disappointment. From there, the Youngers are faced with racism in their search for a new home and, ultimately, with striving to reaffirm their family values.
Director René D. Copeland’s cast is a collection of serious talent, with the central spotlight on Eddie George, Nashville’s football legend turned thespian. George has undeniable physical power and a penchant for channeling big emotions. Those gifts prove of special value in Act 2, when Walter Lee’s premature assertions about his future as a prominent businessman are betrayed by his own gut-wrenching lack of judgment. (Playwright Hansberry rather torturously creates a sense of foreboding leading up to Walter Lee’s missteps, his painful penitence and his subsequent biblical wailing.)
George is surrounded by proven players, including Tamiko Robinson Steele, who offers a perfectly pitched turn as Ruth, persevering despite the troubles in her marriage. Even more illuminating in performance is Lauren F. Jones, who as Beneatha emerges boldly as the play’s Cassandra figure — a feisty realist unafraid of truthful pronouncements or expressing her agnosticism or speaking on modern ideas about assimilation or the liberation of women. (It’s almost hard to believe her dialogue was written so long ago.) Veteran stage, film and TV actress Jackie Welch excels as Mama Younger, the perfect mix of God-fearing wisdom and family pride. Mama may not always be right, but she’s always strong, and you always know where you stand with her.
The commendable supporting players include Brandon Hirsch, who renders a magnetic performance as a poetic intellectual concerned with his African roots, and James Rudolph as a glib rich kid whose arrogance and insouciance come off with natural flair. Matthew Carlton hits the right condescending tone as the representative from the neighborhood that wants to buy off the Youngers so they won’t move into an all-white enclave called Clybourne Park. (Bruce Norris’ play Clybourne Park, recently presented by Circle Players and previously by the Rep, is the contemporary follow-up to Raisin.) Smallest among the cast — but certainly not the least — is Russell Jacquese Acklin Jr., a seventh-grader at West End Middle School who flawlessly portrays young Travis.
Gary Hoff’s detailed apartment set, Trish Clark’s well-chosen costumes and even the show’s incidental blues music tracks all conjure the big-shouldered Windy City at a critical moment in time — our nation in the throes of impending social change. Even so, most of the issues confronting the Youngers — generational differences, upward mobility, having and raising children, faith, morality, pursuing the American Dream — are universals that cut across all ethnicities and, perhaps with some irony, serve to strengthen Hansberry’s nearly 60-year-old message.
Putting the capper on a season of general excellence, the Rep delivers epic theater, and it’s must viewing for Nashville theatergoers.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com
