Universal Love Story

THE ONLY PROBLEM with Patrick Bradford production of A Raisin in the Sun stems not from the staring which is virtually flawless, but from the perfect pitch and shape of the play itself Since A Raisin in the Sun was written 25 years ago the question arises as to whether such a play can be possible today. The topical concerns abortion and housing in narrow terms, and hypocrisy and racism in broader are no less relevant today. But the themes would not, in all likelihood, receive the same warm and disinterested treatment Probably no one, and certainly few Black Americans, could write with the same faith about the condition of Black people today.

The play therefore, is somewhat inaccessible to present day sensibility Composed in the far away dawn of the television era, the play juxtaposes how oppressive the deadening hilarity of sitcom is next to a drama which probes the validity of all its characters feelings. Playwright Lorraine Hansberry impresses any audience with her command over an astonishing range of feeling, she recalls I M Forster at his best and least boring. But immediately one wonders if a Black playwright today, writing after the tumults, disillusion, and stilling of the last two decades, could afford the humanity which Hansberry so richly displays.

The play's plot follows the lives of a Black family living in Chicago's Southside ghetto. The family includes Mama Younger (Stephanie Wilford), her single daughter Beneatha Younger (Frettra Miller) and married son Walter Lee Younger (Kerrick Johnson) Living with the family are Walter's wife Ruth (Diane Cardwell) and son Travis (Dean Headley). They live in an apartment where Mama and her husband settled years ago, originally as a temporary abode for their small family. As the play opens, the family is waiting for insurance money coming from the death of Mama's husband. Tensions are high, because Walter Lee wants to invest the money in a liquor store, while Mama is determined to use at least a part of it to send Beneatha to medical school. Mama also would like to buy a new house.

Director Patrick Bradford deserves much credit for not forcing the play into the shape of a comedy, melodrama, or sitcom, because Hansberry's plot resists constraints of form, narrowly understood. Avoiding the two temptations attendant on staging a classic. Bradford neither lets the play pull all the weight of the production, nor reinterprets the play in silly ways--making everyone wear parachute suits, for instance. Bradford's active good judgment, dramatic flair, and sense of timing preserve the thoroughness and unsentimental freshness of the original.

THE EVEN STRENGTH of the cast is remediable with each actor operating on the same level of stylization Frettra Miller is hilarious and convincing as Beneatha Younger, an idealistic high spirited, and insolent girl. She makes a wonderful foil for her brother, playing the role of the naive pretender with living accuracy. Diane Cardwell is solid as Ruth Younger, with the manners and look of a slightly worn but loving wife. Cardwell only has trouble with her role at two points late in the play, where she is supposed to show herself overcome by strong emotion. It seems as if the director did not give her sufficient guidance as to what responses are most effective.

Best of all, however, are Stephanie Wilford as Mama and Kerrick Johnson as Walter Lee Wilford's performance is sterling. She carries the posture walk, face, and delivery of her character with no apparent effort Kerrick Johnson, although his character has fewer emotions to express, shows himself equal to Wilford's vital assurance Johnson has an easier time displaying strong emotion then Cardwell, and he has no problem holding himself when he is not talking.

Johnson's acting keeps pace with the development of his character and does not crumble. When Walter Ice, entrusted by his mother with the insurance money, gives it to a friend rather than to a bank, the friend absconds with the sum. In desperation. Walter Lee is ready to give up the house in the suburbs, for which the down payment has been made, by selling it back to the local homes association. However, unable to cave in to the representative of the association with his son and mother present. Walter Lee rejects the association's offer. All throughout the performance, Johnson's depiction of his emotional growth is convincing.

Special notice must be given to Jonathan Engel's portrait of Karl Lindner, the homes association representative. The first time Lindner visits the Younger home he is timorous, almost deferential, refusing hospitality and asserting that all problems can be solved if people will only sit down and talk about them. He insists on being polite even though he would never speak to Black people if he could help it. The second time he visits, secure in his faith that the Youngers will accept his offer and wisely avoid trouble. Lindner is not arrogant, but brisk. Engel plays the two scenes with exactly the right shift of confidence; his second appearance in the Younger home is one of the finest parts of the production.

THE METHOD AND DEVELOPMENT of the play resemble a remark made by the psychologist Erik Erikson. Discussing Eros, the psychological principle of love, Erikson asserts that love is, theoretically and potentially, universal. In quaintly secular fashion, Erikson approaches an idealization of the power of love not unlike the old Christian attitude, implicitly forwarding the social health of love as the chief criterion for judging a culture. Hansberry seems to have constructed A Raisin in the Sun from the critical vantage point of the possibility of universal love. While the result is staggering, one immediately wonders if it is always possible to respond so feelingly to life and art. Are there some feelings which are less valid than others? Are there people whose feelings are less valid than one's own? These are unpleasant questions; but the very graciousness of Hansberry's spirit provokes them in the narrow hearts of her audience. One leaves the Mainstage production theater, glad to have seen the show, but wishing, perhaps, that Hansberry was managing one's own life.