‘Raisin in the Sun’ beautifully shows us family’s souls
There’s a detail in Tramaine Berryhill’s smartly imagined set for “A Raisin in the Sun” that stands out right from the start.
Over the shabby apartment that houses Lorraine Hansberry’s compellingly beautiful story of dreams deferred at the Garden Theatre, the audience can see where the plaster has fallen away, revealing the bricks underneath.
It’s particularly apt for “Raisin,” in which we are invited to peer beyond the surface of the Younger family members and see what’s holding them together, what’s building them up, what’s tearing them down — literally the stuff they are made of.
For the Garden, director Roberta Emerson has done an exquisite job of showing that to theatergoers while keeping her characters so firmly grounded in reality you can practically taste the eggs while Ruth makes breakfast for her husband.
“A Raisin in the Sun” has plenty of moments where the characters deliver monologues almost Shakespearean in nature — but under Emerson’s guidance, they never sound like pontificating. These are actual humans giving us glimpses of their souls.
Hansberry’s story, a classic in theatrical literature, tells of the Youngers, a Black family of the 1950s, eagerly awaiting a $10,000 life-insurance check after the death of their patriarch.
But each sees a different use for the money: Mother Lena yearns for “a little house, good and solid” with a garden. Son Walter Lee wants to invest in a new business so he can stop chauffeuring rich white men around. Daughter Beneatha has dreams of medical school.
Beneatha, played with beautiful spirit and the surety of youth by Ambria M. Benjamin, embodies an inner struggle I can only imagine people of color still face: How to embrace their historical culture while fitting in with contemporary society — but not conforming to racist expectations.
As Walter, Durell R. Brown also vividly portrays his struggle: How long should anyone have to wait to see a dream come true? And how does one cope with a lifetime of disappointment? With his face masked, Brown smartly uses vocal inflection and movement to convey this man’s pain.
“A Raisin in the Sun” is as much Lena’s story as it is Walter’s, and Jade L. Jones effortlessly shows the various facets of a woman who has endured more than all the others, by virtue of her age. A slapping scene shocks, but Jones makes it ring true to a character who has spent a lifetime with little to cling to — except her faith.
Along with Berryhill’s detailed set, other creative elements shine, particularly Anthony Narciso’s sound design, which strikingly mixes the mundane of passing traffic with the sublime of the escape provided by music.
Like the set, direction and performances, the musical expression is one more way of seeing into these characters’ hearts and souls.
‘A Raisin in the Sun’
◼ Length: 2:40 including intermission
◼ COVID-19 precautions: temperature checks, distanced seating, assigned entrances, usher-led dismissal, mandatory masks for audience and actors
◼ Where: Garden Theatre, 160 W. Plant St. in Winter Garden
◼ When: Through March 14
◼ Cost: $20-$35
◼ Info: gardentheatre.org