CityLife

A Raisin In The Sun

Starletta DuPois as Lena Younger

A Raisin In The Sun
Royal Exchange
February 2, 2010

A HUGE, award-winning, Broadway hit in the late 1950s, Lorraine Hansberry’s compassionate and gently humorous family saga has always been viewed as a cornerstone in the development of Black theatre.

But cornerstones – most certainly theatrical ones – can crumble and a half century on, does this story of a black lower-class Chicago family, striving to better themselves in the face of racism and the temptations of a fast buck, still work as theatre and relevant social comment?

Well, 50 years ago it was very much ahead of its time and thanks to an excellent Royal Exchange production it certainly worked for the first night audience, who gave it a cheering, whooping , standing ovation.

Making her UK stage debut, the exotically-named American actress Starletta DuPois heads a very strong cast. She is Mama Lena Younger, the matriarch of the family, whose 10,000 dollars of insurance money, following the death of her husband, is the pivotal point of the play.

Powerful protest

It’s a role DuPois has already played in an Emmy award-winning TV version and she is entirely at home in her skin here as the deeply caring but stand-no-nonsense proud head of the family.

When she ignores the wishes of her son and buys a house in an all-white suburb, the family’s problems begin in earnest. 

Eldest son Walter wants to open a liquor store, whereas his wife Ruth is simply delighted to move out of their cockroach-infested apartment. Walter’s young sister Beneatha is more interested in investigating her African roots.

Ray Fearon, as the frustrated, restless, ambitious, self-deluding Walter, gives a magnificently judged, barnstorming performance. But Jenny Jules as his put-upon but still devoted wife and Tracy Ifeachor, as the impulsive Beneatha, are totally convincing too.

Director Michael Buffong has pulled the long – three hour - evening together with a clear passion for the text and despite a little too much of the four-square, well-made-play, about it, and despite a few too many too-obvious clichés, the piece emerges as a powerful protest against racial injustice but above all as a moving story of real people you actually grow to know and care about.

Until February 20, 2010. Royal Exchange, St Ann’s Square, Manchester. Evenings at 7.30; mats Wed/Sats at 2.30. Tickets £8.50 to £29.50. Box office 0161 833 9833 or www.royalexchange.co.uk.