By Bob Fischbach
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Published Saturday
September 18, 2004
A strong cast from top to bottom delivers where it counts in the Beasley Theater's production of "A Raisin in the Sun," which opened Friday night.
They got the feelings right.
And what feelings run through Lorraine Hansberry's Tony-winning 1959 play. Humor and anger, love and heartbreak pass through the Youngers' door.
A lower-middle-class black family on Chicago 's South Side is adjusting to the death of its patriarch. Big Willie Younger left his wife, Lena , $10,000 in insurance money, and the house is divided on how it should be used.
Their son, Walter Lee, wants to invest in a liquor store and be a businessman. Walter Lee's wife, Ruth, says it's her mother-in-law's money to spend. Ruth has doubts about Walter Lee's oversize dreams and the example being set for their son, 10-year-old Travis.
Walter Lee's spirited sister, Benny, has her own dreams: to become a doctor. Lena is determined to pay the tuition.
But though all are crowded into a tiny apartment, Lena 's children have become like strangers to her. She doesn't understand Benny's lack of spiritual belief. She wants no part of a liquor business.
And she's worried about Walter Lee, who feels ganged up on by the world and resentful of the women's lack of support for his dream.
What happens to the money and the family makes a fine story for this fine cast to tell. With direction by Doug Paterson of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, costumes by UNO's Sharon Sobel and a first-rate set designed by Chris Gray, the show looks and feels like the 1950s.
Erline M. Patrick, as Lena , leads the way with a finely etched performance that dominates the play. Vincent Lee Alston as Walter Lee, Cheryl L. Bowles as Ruth and Naeemah Ford as Benny also dig deep emotionally, and the results are memorable and moving.
Ande Frasier, as Travis, holds Grandma Lena and the audience in the palm of his hand. Tyrone Beasley and Andre McGraw play competing suitors for Benny's affections, each dashing in his own way, while Ben Gray makes the most of a single scene in which he must deliver devastating news. A standout supporting role falls to Darrick Silkman as the smiling, thinly veiled face of segregation.
The show's only flaw is that, at nearly three hours, it dragged at times, particularly in the first act. Giving time for big emotional moments to sink in is a strength, but line cues, entrances and exits need to pick up in other segments. Typically, things tighten as a show settles in. Heartwarming and deeply affecting, "A Raisin in the Sun" still reminds us, more than 40 years after it was written, how far we've come and how far we've yet to go in eliminating racial prejudice. Hansberry's play and Paterson 's cast do us all a favor in rekindling dreams worth striving for.
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