Reviews for A Raisin in the Sun

The average rating for A Raisin in the Sun based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-12-10 00:00:00 Francois Morin In 1959, 29 year old Lorraine Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun, which went on to become "one of a handful of great American plays." Five years later she would succumb to cancer but not before Raisin penetrated the upper echelon of American plays. What is remarkable about Hansberry's rise to stardom is that she was virtually unknown and African American at a time when African Americans were just starting to make gains in society. And yet Raisin made to Broadway and television, cementing its place as a classic American play. The year is sometime between World War II and 1959, when Hansberry first produced this play. The Younger family of Chicago's south side has lived in a two flat apartment for as long as they can remember. Upon the death of the family's patriarch Big Walter, Mama Lena stands to gain $10,000 in life insurance money. At the time, this was a considerable sum of money, and Mama desired to use it fulfill the American dream- buy a house, put her daughter through college, invest in her son's business plans. Yet, things do not go according to plan. Hansberry has created memorable characters in Mama, her daughter Beneatha, son Walter Lee, and daughter-in-law Ruth. Beneatha represents the new black woman, attempting to finish medical school at a time when few blacks or women became doctors. She also was enticed by the back to Africa movement popular at the time even though her family believed her to have a brighter future in America. Meanwhile, Walter Lee dreams of starting a chain of businesses and moving up in the world so that his children could have a brighter future than the life he and has parents have lived. His wife Ruth shares those dreams to a certain extent and like any family there is tension between the couple, which Hansberry pens eloquently. Hansberry touches on the racial prejudices still prevalent even in northern cities in the years between Jackie Robinson integrating baseball and the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Whites torched blacks' properties, paid them not to move into their neighborhoods, or started the white flight movement. The Youngers want to fulfill the American dream that had been absent to them in their years as slaves, sharecroppers, chauffeurs, and maids. Their white would-be neighbors want to do all in their power to prevent this from happening. Hansberry's words ring out today as much as they did in 1959. The tensions had be captivated to find out the denouement and must have been even more powerful on stage, with gifted actors as Esther Rolle as Mama and Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee. Yet, these words still are poignant when read in book form these 57 years later. Lorraine Hansberry penetrated the inner circle of American playwrights at a time when African Americans had a select few role models to look up to. Her play is still discussed in schools as a lesson in race relations and tolerance to all people. In a short five years between Raisin's debut and her untimely death, she penned three more plays as well as memoirs, which had been released posthumously. I rate Hansberry's everlasting contribution to American play writing, A Raisin in the Sun, 5 bright stars. I look forward to reading her other plays.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-02-02 00:00:00 Nathan Limeburner Ten stars, please. All the stars for Ms. Hansberry's haunting, revealing play. As fresh in 2018 as it was in 1958.