A Raisin in the Sun Critique On Sunday, November 2, 2015 at 2:00pm, I went to see Broward College’s production of A Raisin in the Sun. The play took place on Broward College Central Campus in the Fine Arts Theatre in Building 6. My first impression of the venue was that it was warm and friendly. There was a positive vibe. Everybody was excited for the performance. I arrived at about 1:30pm, was handed a brochure at the door, and took my seat. Usually I would sit in the back, but I decided to sit in the middle so there would be a good aesthetic distance between the performers and I. I sat about five rows back, somewhat in the center. The person in front of me was a little tall, but it didn’t distract from the performance. The stage was …show more content…
The Younger’s are a middle-lower class family dealing with family issues. Although there are some parts that will make you laugh, this play is not a comedy. The main plot of the story is that the Youngers are receiving an insurance check of 10,000 dollars and everybody wants to do something different with the money. They have to figure out as a family what the money should go towards. I think this production has elements of episodic and climactic, but overall it is climactic. Although it takes place over a time period of a few weeks, the entire play takes place in one locale and the cast is made up of twelve people. There are multiple protagonists including Ruth, Mama, Beneatha, and Walter. Even though they all want different things, their ultimate goal is for the money to go to good use. There is more than one antagonist as well. They are all antagonists for different reasons, but they all did something negative towards the Youngers. The antagonists are Karl Linder for trying to buy the Youngers’ house from them, “Willie” for stealing Walter’s money, and Ms. Johnson. Travis Younger and the moving men are stock characters. Walter and Ruth are dramatic characters. The language used in the play is vernacular, every day language. The characters use 1950’s Chicago
This show takes place in the dilapidated, two-bedroom apartment of Walter and Ruth Younger, their son Travis, Walter’s mother Lena, also known as “Mama”, and his sister Beneatha. This award winning production of the 2014 revival of A Raisin In The Sun shows the talented Denzel Washington fill the shoes of Walter Younger, the story’s main character. He stars alongside LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who plays the part of Ruth. The 1859 classic depicting the lives of this African-American family’s life in South Side Chicago during the 1950s. Walter is barely getting by financially, due to his low income as a limousine driver, desperately has the desire to become wealthy--who doesn’t?. Walter plans to invest in his own liquor store which he will run alongside his good friend Willy, and plans to do so with his portion of his mother’s insurance check; did I mention that the check was for $10,000! Mama puts down money for a house --a house, in an all-white neighborhood, with a lawn, that her grandson will be able to play on. This has always been a dream of her and her husband, and now that he is gone, she only wants it more.
Yesterday night I reviewed the play “The Miss Firecracker Contest” In Wilmington, North Carolina at Big Dawg Productions. The play started out as Carnell Scott, 24-year-old orphaned southern girl who lives in Brookhaven, Mississippi. She is tap dancing in her room with a purple leotard and some kitchen utensils used as creative batons practicing her routine for The Miss Firecracker Contest.
Before seeing how class differences play an important role in “A Raisin in the Sun,” one must examine the location in which the play takes place. Hansberry defines the play’s setting as “Chicago’s Southside, sometime between World War II and the present.” (Hansberry 22) The play was written in 1959, prior to the civil rights movement in America. Even so, this post-war timeframe “exemplified a new wave of black suburbanization” (Wiese 100). As more African Americans made the transition fro...
Walking into the Grieb Theatre with both skepticism and little knowledge of the play that I was about to see, I exited with a little connection to some of the actors and a sense of mild disappointment from the play, although I thought to myself how difficult it must have been for the actors and the director to constantly feel the pressure about bringing up a topic of racism and discrimination to the community audience.
The Younger family demonstrates that even with conflict there is still plenty of room to love and support each other. On the other hand, “A Streetcar named Desire can thus be read as an experiment probing how far one can go following one’s desire, something radically different from sex or love. If one goes the whole way, as Blanche eventually does, one destroys oneself” (Thomieres 390). While the Younger’s are stressing over what Lena is going to do with the money, Beneatha is faced with gender role conflict from George, which results in their break up. The Younger family faces conflict when desire pops its head up in the ten thousand dollar check. As for Stanley, Stella and Blanche, their desires in sexual matters causes Stella and Blanche’s relationship to quiver. These two plays show similar conflicts but end in an entirely different manner. There is nothing in the world that can restrain the Youngers from giving up on their American dream while Stella results in thinking Blanche is dishonest about Stanley and needs to be taking into a mental hospital. In the end, each family will do what is needed in order to save their relationships no matter the
The Younger’s, an African American family living on the south-side of Chicago in the 1950s, live in an undersized apartment for their family of five. Lena Younger, the mother of the house, receives a check of ten thousand dollars and dreams of owning her own house in a white neighborhood. Beneatha’s brother, Walter, has high hopes of investing the money in a liquor store. Walter’s wife, Ruth does all she can to support his ideas while caring for their son, Travis. But, to become a doctor, Beneatha wants and needs the money to pay for her schooling. Walter and Beneatha’s wants for the money cause disputes throughout the house.
Throughout Act 2, we can see the development of the characters. Beneatha continues to find her identity by appreciating her African heritage. Walter becomes depressed when Lena buys the house and fails to realize that Lena did something for the family to become whole again. However, I believe that Act 2 focuses more on assimilation, Walter’s childishness, and Mr. Linder and the community’s racism.
Everyone would like to support their family financially and achieve financial success in their lives. Walter Younger is a thirty-five year old, married man who, is a limousine driver and has dreams like each one of us. Walter represents a 1950’s African-American male, who struggles, but tries to secure economic prosperity. Walter Younger has a dream to open a liquor store and he believes that this store will lead his family to The American Dream. A dream is a hope or a wish and Walter Younger, who is the hero and the villain of the play, wants to use Mama’s 10,000 to open up the liquor store. Walter Younger’s family is an African-American family that is struggling in poverty, but Walter’s idea of financial stability could lead the family to
A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry is realistic fictional drama in which the play 's title and the character represent the play 's theme. The play focused on Black America 's Struggle to reach the American Dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness during the 1950s and the 1960s. The idea of everyone having the chance to achieve a better life should exist for all. Hansberry conceives her title using a line from Langston Hughes poem “A dream deferred”. The original poem was written in 1951 about Harlem. Hughes’ line from the poem state that when dreams are deferred “Does it dry up like a Raisin in the Sun”. This meant that they describe them as being small and already pretty withered. Hughes poem further suggested that when
Everyone encounters struggle and “ain’t nobody bothering you” but yourself (1872). Many African Americans encounter hardships and conflict in their own lives because of their race. Before integration, not only were African Americans facing internal struggles but also the external struggles caused by prejudices. A Raisin in the Sun elaborates on the conflicts of African Americans when dealing with segregation, discrimination, and few opportunities to improve their lifestyle. Hansberry expresses her hardships as an African American woman without civil rights in the 1950’s through the Younger family and the decisions they make when confronting their own struggles.
In the words of Jim Cocola and Ross Douthat, Hansberry wrote the play A Raisin in the Sun to mimic how she grew up in the 1930s. Her purpose was to tell how life was for a black family living during the pre-civil rights era when segregation was still legal (spark notes). Hansberry introduces us to the Youngers’, a black family living in Chicago’s Southside during the 1950s pre-civil rights movement. The Younger family consists of Mama, who is the head of the household, Walter and Beneatha, who are Mama’s children, Ruth, who is Walter’s wife, and Travis, who is Walter and Ruth’s son. Throughout the play the Youngers’ address poverty, discrimination, marital problems, and abortion. Mama is waiting on a check from the insurance company because of the recent passing of her husband. Throughout the play Walter tries to convince Mama to let him invest the money in a liquor store. Beneatha dreams of becoming a doctor while embracing her African heritage, and Ruth just found out that she is pregnant and is struggling to keep her marriage going. The Youngers’ live in a very small apartment that is falling apart because of the wear and tear that the place has endured over the years. Mama dreams of having her own house and ends up using part of the insurance money for a down payment on a house in an up-scale neighborhood. The Youngers’ meet Mr. Lindner, who is the head of the welcoming committee. Mr. Lindner voices the community’s concerns of the Youngers’ moving into their neighborhood. Is the play A Raisin in the Sun focused on racial or universal issues?
There are seven main characters in this play, the majority belonging to one family. The first impression seems like the family in the play are a normal Middle American family. Dodges one-track alcoholic mind, Halie’s irritating personality, and Tilden’s distant relationship with his father seems fairly typical of an elderly family; however, this is far from the truth.
So when discussing unilineal groups and nonlineal groups, something that one has to keep in mind is what cultures each descends from. Unilineal groups consist of lineages, clans, phratries, and moieties. Lineages are a form of lineal descent from an ancestor, ancestry, or pedigree. An example of lineage are people who have the same relatives from 100 years ago. Clans are a close-knit and interrelated families, and an example of this can be found in families in the Scottish Highlands. Phratries are a kinship group constituting an intermediate division in the primitive’s structure of the Hellenic tribe or phyle. Moieties consists of one of two units into which a tribe or community is divided on the basis of unilineal descent.
Wilkerson, Margaret B. "'A Raisin in the Sun': Anniversary of an American Classic." Theatre Journal 38.4 (1986): 441-52. Print.
The first time reading this story I thought of it as a very unique type of play that we don’t usually read about in our everyday lives. The play consists of an American family of five - a Father Dodge, Mother Haile, 2 sons by the name of Tilden and Bradley, Nephew Vince and also a few extra characters who are not a part of the family. From the beginning of the play the main character Dodge is introduced in a way that perfectly