And What of Dreams that Clash?

It has been said that one of two basic plots drive a good story: A stranger comes to call or someone takes a journey. In Lorraine Hansberry’s classic A Raisin in the Sun, it’s the former. But in this case, the stranger in question, the visitor who throws the Younger family into disarray, is an insurance check.

A highly anticipated $10,000 windfall—from the elder Walter Younger’s insurance policy—has the potential to help each member of the family realize a dream.

For mother Lena, it’s a house: an escape from the fusty apartment with its makeshift sleeping arrangements and communal bathroom. For her daughter Beneatha, it’s medical school, and for Walter Younger, Jr., it’s the chance to be the boss—instead of being the boss’s chauffeur. And the noisy clash of these dreams threatens the family’s future.

Everyman Theatre's production is true to the classic, even as it trains the spotlight on the family itself. The action is set in Chicago’s South Side in the early 1950s—just before Rosa Parks famously stayed in her seat on the bus, when Dr. Martin Luther King was barely out of seminary. And while director Jennifer Nelson’s Raisin is certainly buffeted by the larger world, it’s the family relationships that stir us. When racism rears its ugly head, in the form of an all-white neighborhood association, it comes as a device to test filial loyalty.

The cast is strong, led by the bird-like Lizan Mitchell, as the fiercely optimistic matriarch, who looks to her offspring to perpetuate the pride that defines her family. Her somewhat more privileged children search for legitimacy elsewhere—Walt (KenYatta Rogers) in money, and Benny (Fatima Quander) in her desire to help others, as well as her own African roots—introduced to the impressionable girl by a young Nigerian student (Eric Berryman) who sweeps her off her feet.

Everyman company member Dawn Ursula as Walter’s wife Ruth, is a lifeline hovering in the background of every heated exchange—available for each character to reflexively grasp, seemingly impassive, but acutely intent on holding her family together.

James Fouchard’s set, with its dingy wallpaper and impressive vintage appliances helps to keep the action focused. There’s just enough stuff here, and of the right period, to make things believable. LeVonne Lindsay’s costumes and Linda Cavell’s hair designs likewise ring true.

While A Raisin in the Sun lives in that shaky moment of American history, when the American dream was just coming into focus for so many people of color, the play is the story of one family. The title comes from the famous Langston Hughes poem pondering the fate of a dream deferred: "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore—and then run?" In the end, it doesn’t seem to matter where this family lives, how much money they have—or even if their dreams will be realized. They are, after all, a family.