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Is wonderful!
Lorraine Hansberry's breakthrough drama (1959) is in loving, unflinching hands. Directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, the ensemble and design-work are first-rate. And outstanding performances by Mark Christopher Lawrence, as conflicted Walter Lee Younger, and Sylvia M'Lafi Thompson, as his mother Lena, make the production one of Moxie's finest ever.
The Younger family tends to stereotype people outside their cramped apartment, on the Southside of Chicago, as either good or bad. This happens so often that Lena finally calls a halt. Don't judge people as all or nothing, she says. They must be measured "by both their hills and valleys."
Hansberry does just that in Raisin. Her many-sided portrayal of a black family broke new ground all down Broadway.
The Youngers have lived in the same apartment for decades. On Sean Fanning's detailed set, the furnishings, though neat, look fatigued, the carpet, depressed. And the sun barely peeps through a window across from a brick wall. Lena's scrawny houseplant begs, as does the family, for "sunshine."
Lena's husband died, leaving her a $10,000 check from his life insurance policy. How to spend it galvinizes the drama because the family's long-deferred dreams compete.
Walter Lee burns to own a liquor store. Twenty-year-old Beneatha (Kaja Dunn) wants to become a doctor. But Lena decides to buy a house in Clybourne Park, an all-white neighborhood. Six generations of Youngers have known the evils of slavery and overt racism. Now they face the covert version of the same old, same old: de facto segregation.
One of the most amazing features of the play: everyone and, it seems, every thing, is in transition. The Youngers have been stuck in a "valley" for years. Now Walter Lee's wife Ruth is pregnant (and can they afford a child?). Joseph Asagai (Laurence Brown) may return to Africa.
The times are a-changing too. The late 50s are on the cusp of the 60s. Young Beneatha (modeled on 28-year-old Hansberry?) foreshadows the Civil Rights Movement, just as buttoned-down Karl Linder (Kent Weingardt), of the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, represents the need for the struggle.
Before they can move out, to an uncertain future, the Youngers must first climb out of personal valleys. After some of the most dramatic scenes in American theater, that they do. And by play's end, the old, "rat trap" of an apartment can't contain their new-found pride.
Moxie Theatre, 6663 El Cajon Boulevard, college area. Playing through March 4. Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Matinee Sunday at 2:00 p.m. 858-598-7620.
Is wonderful!
Lorraine Hansberry's breakthrough drama (1959) is in loving, unflinching hands. Directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, the ensemble and design-work are first-rate. And outstanding performances by Mark Christopher Lawrence, as conflicted Walter Lee Younger, and Sylvia M'Lafi Thompson, as his mother Lena, make the production one of Moxie's finest ever.
The Younger family tends to stereotype people outside their cramped apartment, on the Southside of Chicago, as either good or bad. This happens so often that Lena finally calls a halt. Don't judge people as all or nothing, she says. They must be measured "by both their hills and valleys."
Hansberry does just that in Raisin. Her many-sided portrayal of a black family broke new ground all down Broadway.
The Youngers have lived in the same apartment for decades. On Sean Fanning's detailed set, the furnishings, though neat, look fatigued, the carpet, depressed. And the sun barely peeps through a window across from a brick wall. Lena's scrawny houseplant begs, as does the family, for "sunshine."
Lena's husband died, leaving her a $10,000 check from his life insurance policy. How to spend it galvinizes the drama because the family's long-deferred dreams compete.
Walter Lee burns to own a liquor store. Twenty-year-old Beneatha (Kaja Dunn) wants to become a doctor. But Lena decides to buy a house in Clybourne Park, an all-white neighborhood. Six generations of Youngers have known the evils of slavery and overt racism. Now they face the covert version of the same old, same old: de facto segregation.
One of the most amazing features of the play: everyone and, it seems, every thing, is in transition. The Youngers have been stuck in a "valley" for years. Now Walter Lee's wife Ruth is pregnant (and can they afford a child?). Joseph Asagai (Laurence Brown) may return to Africa.
The times are a-changing too. The late 50s are on the cusp of the 60s. Young Beneatha (modeled on 28-year-old Hansberry?) foreshadows the Civil Rights Movement, just as buttoned-down Karl Linder (Kent Weingardt), of the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, represents the need for the struggle.
Before they can move out, to an uncertain future, the Youngers must first climb out of personal valleys. After some of the most dramatic scenes in American theater, that they do. And by play's end, the old, "rat trap" of an apartment can't contain their new-found pride.
Moxie Theatre, 6663 El Cajon Boulevard, college area. Playing through March 4. Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Matinee Sunday at 2:00 p.m. 858-598-7620.