A Raisin in the Sun first appeared on Broadway sixty-five years ago, with multiple revivals since by theatre professionals and amateurs. I think it is safe to say that we can now consider it to be an American classic. At St. Louis University, Lorraine Hansberry’s play is getting the kind of performance a classic deserves.
In addition to the students in the cast and on the production staff, three guest artists are recognized. Jackson Little, a grade school student, plays the son of one of the leading characters, Walter Lee Younger. He always hits his marks, physically and emotionally. LaWanda Jackson, an actress with PPA Alumni Company, Chorus of Fools, and Slightly Askew Theatre Ensemble, does a hilarious, precisely timed scene as Mrs. Johnson, the neighborhood busybody. Alex Jay, playing Walter Lee’s sister Beneatha , has a theatre degree from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She fully embodies her character’s vibrant, mercurial appeal, a smart, ambitious, determined young black woman not unlike the playwright herself, on the cutting edge with her interest in African roots and her switch to an Afro. Anita Michelle Jackson is perhaps better known in St. Louis as a singer, but she has extensive theatre experience. And she is good. She plays Lena Younger, the mother and grandmother of this family, widow of the father and grandfather whose insurance offers the family a sudden infusion of cash, causing a serious conflict within the family about how that money is to be used. Jackson makes it clear that the spine of the drama is the determination of Lena to use her late husband’s insurance money to buy a house so she and her family can escape the worn, crowded apartment where her grandson must sleep on a couch in the living room and the family must share a bathroom with the others on the same floor. The best deal on a house that Lena can find just happens to be in a white neighborhood. Jackson’s intelligently modulated performance shows us in Lena a strong and determined woman, the ruling head of her family. But she also can be sensitive to the needs of her family, and she can learn that she has not always dealt with them in the best way.
That’s especially true of her son Walter Lee. Here playwright Hansberry also deals with the plight of the Black man, emasculated both by the white society and by an often matriarchal Black society. Walter Lee works as a chauffeur for a wealthy white businessman. But he’s burning to make his own way with his own business. The role calls on the actor to explore emotional extremes, celebrating great hopes for the future and total collapse when the dream is betrayed. At Saint Louis U., Dwayne Mose III plays these emotions and reactions with fine control. Maiah Lyndsey is perhaps the quietest person on stage as Walter Lee’s wife Ruth, but she effectively communicates what is going on in Ruth’s head and heart as we see her weary from the daily grind, distraught with an unexpected pregnancy, almost ecstatic with the thought of moving into a house with enough room and even a yard. Joseph Asagai, a student from Nigeria played by Mayokun Lawal, has more than a little interest in Beneatha. He’s quiet with quiet charm and very well mannered. Sean Mawuenyega plays Beneatha’s American suitor, wealthy and bland. Martin Mahr is Bobo, one of Walter Lee’s two friends with whom he plans to purchase and run a liquor store, and he is the distraught bearer of bad tidings. Karl Lindner, played by Tony Chaboude, couldn’t be smoother and friendlier and more helpful as the representative of the new neighborhood’s racism. While age differences in this cast are easily noticeable, differences in ability are not.
Credit director Kathryn Bentley for at least some of that ability. She gives the play exactly the kind of classic American realism it wants. Her pacing of the scenes plays very well, as does her use of the stage’s spaces in the crowded and worn but clean apartment in Joe Stafford’s set; Stafford is also the Technical Director. Denisse Chavez designed the efficient, unobtrusive lighting. AhSa-Ti Nu Tyehimba-Ford designed sound; Annie Newbauer designed costumes. Summer Baer was the intimacy coordinator and Erik Kuhn the combat coordinator. Ava Kasten is in charge of props. Jake Santhuff is the Stage Manager.
A Raisin in the Sun gets better and stronger with the years, helped by productions like this one at Saint Louis University.
—Bob Wilcox
Photo by ProPhotoSTL
The Younger family “in A Raisin in the Sun.” From the left, Beneatha (Alex Jay), Travis (Jackson Little), Ruth (Maiah Lyndsey), Walter Lee (Dwayne Mose III), and Lena (Anita Michelle Jackson).