Crucible,Sheffield
Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark play approximately the struggles of an African American family in a Chicago slum is as relevant nowadays as it was half a century agoLorraine Hansberry (1930-65) is the first black woman to have had a play produced on Broadway – in 1959. How many black women have had plays on main stages in major cities since? The power and craft of the writing make A Raisin in the Sun as moving nowadays as it was then. Entrenched attitudes approximately race make the challenges its characters face still relevant (the Oscars fiasco is just one small instance).
In a slum in Chicago’s South Side, fifth and sixth generations of an African American family dream of escape. A grandmother and her daughter-in-law want better for their children; a son/husband/father chafes against his low-paid, or dead-stop job; a marriage cracks under financial pressures; a daughter/sister aims to become a doctor; a child wants to play. Will their dreams,in the words of black American poet Langston Hughes (1902-67), “dry up/ like a raisin in the sun.../ Or [will they] explode”?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com