I have seen several productions of Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun. I have admired it every time. I have been only barely aware, if aware at all, that there exists a musical based on it, a musical that opened a two-year run on Broadway in 1973 and won two Tonys. This play about a working-class Black family living in a cramped apartment in the Chicago ghetto in 1951 seems an unlikely choice for a big Broadway musical. 

Now I have seen the musical, simply called Raisin, in the current production at The Black Rep. It works. To make room for musical numbers a couple of incidents in the play have been eliminated, but the strengths of the play about a Black family buying a house in a white neighborhood where the Neighborhood Association’s representative is anything but welcoming are still there, in some ways maybe more so.

Part of why it works is because the musical score by composerJudd Woldin works so well. I did not leave the theatre humming any of the tunes, but they well supported what Hansberry had her characters saying as now written by lyricist Robert Britton and book co-authors Charlotte Zalzberg and Hansberry’s husband Robert B. Nemiroff. Sometimes Woldin simply supported what was being said with a subtle percussive beat that has some echoes of African drums, all precisely performed under Musical Director Jermaine Manor. 

Also especially effective is the scenic design of Tim Jones. On the stage is the Youngers’ cramped apartment with kitchen and dinner table and matriarch Lena Younger’s throne-like stuffed rocking chair and the couch that doubles as young son Travis’s bed. Looming over it are Chicago’s high rises, their theatricality maintained by their simple rectangular structures and painted windows. Downstage of the apartment is the stage’s wide apron across which pass the city’s crowds, sometimes dancing as they go, meeting, greeting, or ignoring one another with Kirven Douthit-Boyd’s striking choreography. 

And this musical works above all because of what director Ron Himes and the cast have done. As Lena Younger, Anita Michelle Jackson brings to this musical not only her much-admired singing voice but also her acting experience that shows both her love for and her firm maternal guidance of her family. As Walter Lee Younger, Duane Martin Foster commands an even broader range as his character constantly faces fresh obstacles as he tries to achieve his ambitions while providing for his family both what they need and want. That strains in his relationships with them, and especially with his loved and loving wife Ruth, played with depth in all Ruth’s relationships by Adrianna Jones. Her relationship is also loved and loving also with her and Walter Lee’s son Travis, who gets his own big solo on the front stoop of the apartment, sung splendidly by Jaron Bentley. Andrea Mouton makes appealing and effective Walter Lee’s younger sister Beneatha, a pre-med student exploring her African roots with assistance from African exchange student Joseph Asagai, played with assured charm and a splendid voice by Robert McNichols. Usually playing the nicest character on the stage, Will Bonfiglio here gets to enjoy playing against type as the neighborhood’s “welcoming committee.” As neighbor Mrs. Johnson, De-Rance Blaylock leads in the singing in the large choir in the South Side church’s Sunday morning service that opens the second act. Adrian Rice plays Bobo, one of Walter Lee’s partners in their plans for a liquor store; Dwayne Moss III is the other partner, the bad one. Jorrell Lawyer Jefferson is the Dance Captain and a dancer in the ensemble. Demetrium Malik Lee also dances as a lead in the ensemble, as do Aaliyah Weston and Tia Rene Williams.

As an indication of the depth of the theatrical talent in St. Louis, in this production Denise Thimes is an understudy and J. Samuel Davis is the Assistant Stage Manager. 

Tracy Holliway Wiggins is as usual the Stage Manager. As mentioned, Hermaine Manor is the Music Director, Kirven Douthit-Boyd is the Choreographer, and Tim Jones the Scenic Designer. Tony Anselmo designed the lighting, Gregory Horton designed the costumes, Kareem Deanes the Sound Design, and Mikkhail Lynn the Props. 

Now I have seen the musical Raisin. I like it. 

—Bob Wilcox

Photo by Keshon Campbell. Courtesy of The Black Rep.
From the left, Duane Martin Foster as Walter Lee Younger and Jaron Bentley as Travis Younger In Raisin.