Oct. 26, 2001 – Five more performances of the Caribbean Community Theater production of Lorraine Hansberry's "Raisin in the Sun" are on tap at the Sidney Lee Theater at Island Center — at 8 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Nov. 2 and Nov. 3, and at 4 p.m. Nov. 4.
The play, which opened on Broadway in 1959 and won the Drama Critics' Circle Award, centers on the Youngers, an African-American family living in a tenement apartment on Chicago's South Side in the 1950s. After the death of the family patriarch and the distribution of his insurance benefit, three generations of Youngers struggle with the effects of racism and the tensions brought on by plans to move to a single-family home in an all-white suburban neighborhood.
Much of the dialogue involves heated exchanges between the idealistic family matriarch, Mama, and her hostile son, Brother, who feels that moving to the suburbs will hurt, rather than help, his prospects.
A Washington Post drama critic has called the play "one of a handful of great American dramas" (the others being "Death of a Salesman," "Long Day's Journey into Night" and "The Glass Menagerie").
Marsha Munchez is directing the production in addition to appearing as Mama, who wants to open doors to opportunity for herself and her family. (In real life, Munchez is the goddaughter of Roxie Roker of "The Jeffersons.") And Lionel Downer, who lived in Chicago before moving to St. Croix three years ago, wears the mantle of producer in addition to portraying Brother, who wants to use his share of the inheritance to start his own business.
Aisha Harris is Sister, who aspires to become a doctor; Sylvia Brady is Brother's Wife, who wants what's best for her family and thinks the planned move is just that; and 14-year-old David Brady, a Central High School sophomore, is making his dramatic debut as Brother's Son. Two other teen-agers, Education Complex students Jason Jimeno and Elvis Revan, play the moving men. Ronald Lindsey is an African student who loves Sister; Jay Blair is George Murchison, a black who believes that success lies in emulating whites; and Karl Lindner is an emissary from the Youngers' future neighborhood.
The production marks the return of CCT artistic director David Richards after a year's sabbatical. Other behind-the-scenes credits go to Richard Mackay, technical director/light and sound; Kelley Roper, stage manager; and John Reuck and Glen Wells, set construction.
With the opening of "A Raisin in the Sun," Hansberry became the first black female playwright to have a work produced on Broadway. She was the youngest person and the first black to win the Drama Critics' Circle Award. The film version, for which she wrote the screenplay, was a Cannes Film Festival prize winner. She completed only two other plays before she died of cancer at the age of 34.
Hansberry took her inspiration from the poem by Langston Hughes that begins
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
And then run?
The production has sponsorship from Bellows International, Bob-A-Ru, Chase Manhattan Bank, Cruzan Rum, Gotts & Associates, Gerald T. Groner Esq. and The Redemptorists and funding support from the V.I. Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts..
Tickets are $13 general admission and $6 for students. For general admission, there's a $1 discount for CCT members, who also can purchase books of six tickets for $65. Outlets are Geeks R Us, Cruzan Carib, Armrey Industries and the Sidney Lee Theater box office. For reservations and additional information, call 773-7171 between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m.
