"A Raisin in the Sun": Anniversary of an American Classic

Abstract

Rarely, if ever, has a play by a Black-American been accorded the status of a classic. Parochialism and polemics, critics have claimed, render works based on Black experience unattractive and of limited or temporary appeal. Yet Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the first play by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway and to win the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1959, has become American classic within a quarter of a century. According to Samuel French, Inc., estimated two hundred productions were mounted during the 1983-84 theatre season alone, including critical successes at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Yale Repertory Theatre, and the St. Louis Repertory Theatre. In a 1983 review in the New York Times, Mel Gussow called this play about a 1950s Black family in Chicago an enduring work of contemporary theatre.' Lloyd Richards, director of the Yale Repertory and director of the original 1959 production, labeled A Raisin in the Sun, An historic . .. and . .. a timeless piece.2 Frank Rich, in his 1983 review of the Goodman Theatre revival, claimed that the play was dated only by its dependence on plot mechanics.3 The St. Louis Repertory Company's production attracted unprecedented sell-out crowds in 1984, while a 1986 production at the Roundabout Theatre drew the admiration of off-Broadway audiences. What accounts for the extraordinary appeal of A Raisin in the Sun? How has it transcended the racial parochialisms of American audiences?