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My review of A RAISIN IN THE SUN -- Denzel Washington stars in Lorraine Hansberry's play

Posted by:	jesse21 09:25 am EDT 04/03/14

- Kenny Leon last directed Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play, *A Raisin in the Sun, on Broadway ten years ago in a well-received production that won Tonys for Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald and made a respectable actor out of Sean Combs. His love for this play is evident in his new production opening tonight at the Barrymore Theatre. It now seems that what he gave us in 2004 was a mere warm-up for his current examination of this durable classic. Watching his latest go at “Raisin,” you get the idea that Mr. Leon has considered every last facet of the play to come up with what I’m tempted to call a definitive staging. What about star Denzel Washington who at age 59 is portraying the 40-year-old protagonist, Walter Lee Younger? Well, the fact of the matter is that Mr. Washington, like all good actors, makes you quickly forget about the age contrast as he pulls off the role. On one hand, his triumph is physical because this handsome man can move his 6’ 1” frame about the stage with athletic grace. But mostly it's because he delves so deeply into playing Walter’s insecurity and immaturity. The character, a chauffeur, is still a teenager at heart who never grew up to accept the realities of adulthood, partly because of himself, partly because of the strong women in his life and partly because white society has kept him in his place. (By the way and for the record, a 32-year-old Sidney Poitier played Walter Lee opposite 41-year-old Claudia McNeil as his mother Lena in the original Broadway production.) As most people probably know by now, A Raisin in the Sun* takes place entirely inside a South Side Chicago tenement apartment occupied by five members of the Younger family. The time is somewhere between the end of World War II and 1960, a post-war period when African-Americans were beginning to experience new freedoms (roadblocks put up to curb those gains led to the civil rights movement in the sixties). Lena, the matriarch, wants to use most of the proceeds from her late husband’s life insurance policy to buy a house for her family, and some of it to pay tuition for daughter Beneatha’s dream of becoming a doctor. In the course of the play, let’s just say that Walter invests some of that money foolishly. But, Lena has indeed gone house hunting and has put a down payment on a property in Clybourne Park, an all-white subdivision. Even though the play is 55 years old, “Raisin” remains a potent look into not only the aspirations but also the gender roles within the African-American family. Those who have seen “Raisin” before and subsequently Bruce Norris’s 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner, Clybourne Park, with its first act being about how that house at 406 Clybourne Street happened to be sold to Lena Younger, may find, as I did, the experience of watching “Raisin” this time enriched by the dual playgoing experience. Besides Denzel Washington’s fine work, the rest of the cast is also outstanding. Lena is played by Latanya Richardson Jackson (Lincoln Center Theater’s 2009 Joe Turner’s Come and Gone on Broadway), replacing the originally announced Diahann Carroll. We’ll never know what Ms. Carroll would have brought to the role, but what Ms. Jackson gives us is tremendous, capturing the inner (and outer) strength and dignity of a woman who lives by a strict code of conduct. To play Walter’s wife Ruth, the production has hired British stage actress Sophie Okonedo, making her New York and Broadway debut. She is probably best known to U.S. audiences for her Oscar-nominated performance in Hotel Rwanda. So well does her face and body register both the joys and pains of marriage to an immature man, she really doesn’t need dialogue. I particularly was impressed with the way Ms. Okonedo portrayed Ruth’s determination to move to that house and the release it would bring from the crowded apartment with its shared bath out in the hall to boot. Also stunning is Anika Noni Rose (Tony for Caroline, or Change) as Walter’s bright kid sister, the plucky Beneatha. She supplies a good deal of the play’s humor as she gets across a college-age woman’s optimism during this period of history when doors were beginning to open and visions were beginning to be enlarged for blacks. In her case, part of the changing times means getting in touch with her African roots, an attitude lost on her mother and the others. She has two suitors, one a black man with a wealthy father (Jason Dirden), the other an exchange student from Nigeria (Sean Patrick Thomas) who is in the play to question assimilation which was a hot topic among African-Americans at the time. Both men are effective, and there is also a charming performance from 13-year-old Bryce Clyde Jenkins who plays Walter and Ruth’s only child, Travis. Not only does he look like he could be Mr. Washington’s son, he also displays some of the charisma the star exudes. If there’s a further measure of how nothing but the best went into this Scott Rudin production, then I submit the casting of two prominent men in small roles. The distinguished director (and actor) David Cromer of Our Town fame is Karl Lindner, the head of the Clybourne Park homeowner’s association who arrives to talk Lena out of her purchase. And, in even a smaller role in just one scene is that great August Wilson interpreter, Stephen McKinley Henderson (2010 Tony nominee for the Fences revival which was also directed by Mr. Leon and also starred Mr. Washington), as Bobo who, along with Walter, lost money in a scam. Production credits are impeccable as well. Mark Thompson (sets), Ann Roth (costumes) and Brian MacDevitt (lighting) have created a cramped period-detailed environment in which the action of the play percolates. Branford Marsalis curated the jazz music that separates Ms. Hansberry’s six classically-constructed scenes that are equally divided in two acts. It’s a beautiful play in loving hands. You may never see it done better. ★ ★ ★ ★½ ☆ - Jesse SIDEBAR: PHOTOS: production stills. VIDEO & BIOS: BWW-TV’s Rihard Ridge speaks with the cast and director Kenny Leon (Time 17:03). Plus Playbill cast bios. ARTICLE: “Text to Text \| ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ and ‘Discrimination in Housing Against Nonwhites Persists Quietly’” by Susan Chenelle and Audrey Fisch, The New York Times Learning Network, 3-13-2014. ARTICLE: “Denzel Washington Talks 'Raisin In The Sun' Revival And Sidney Poitier” by Mark Kennedy, Associated Press, 3-31-2014. VINTAGE PLAYBILL, June 1, 1959: the original production at the Barrymore Theatre. “A RAISIN IN THE SUN” opens Thursday, April 3, 2014, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th Street, New York City. Seen at a preview on Feb. 26. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission. Act I: 1 hour, 18 minutes. Act II: 1 hour, 5 minutes. Limited engagement. Tickets on sale through Jun 15, 2014. Link to website. -

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