First a little background on "Raisin." Hansberry authored "A Raisin in the Sun" and it debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes. The story is based upon a black family's experiences in the Washington Park Subdivision of Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood. Experiences in this play echo a lawsuit (Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940)), to which the Hansberry family was a party when they fought to have their day in court because a previous class action about racially motivated restrictive covenants (Burke v. Kleiman, 277 Ill. App. 519 (1934) was similar to the case at hand. This case was held prior to the passage of the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in housing and created the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. The Hansberrys won their right to be heard as a matter of due process of law in relation to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court held that the Hansberry defendants were not bound by the Burke decision because the class of defendants in the respective cases had conflicting goals, and thus could not be considered to be the same class.
Lorraine reflects upon the litigation in her book To Be Young, Gifted, and Black:
"25 years ago, [my father] spent a small personal fortune, his considerable talents, and many years of his life fighting, in association with NAACP attorneys, Chicago’s ‘restrictive covenants’ in one of this nation's ugliest ghettos. That fight also required our family to occupy disputed property in a hellishly hostile ‘white neighborhood’ in which literally howling mobs surrounded our house… My memories of this ‘correct’ way of fighting white supremacy in America include being spat at, cursed and pummeled in the daily trek to and from school. And I also remember my desperate and courageous mother, patrolling our household all night with a loaded German Luger (pistol), doggedly guarding her four children, while my father fought the respectable part of the battle in the Washington court."
The Hansberry house, the red brick three-flat at 6140 S. Rhodes in Washington Park which they bought in 1937, is up for landmark status before the Chicago City Council's Committee on Historical Landmarks Preservation.
If you have never read or seen "A Raisin in the Sun" I highly recommend it. Now, on to "Clybourne Park." While "Clybourne Park" was written at a different time in our history than "Raisin" and by a different author, "Clybourne" doesn't exist with out "Raisin"; it was written as a response.
Author Bruce Norris is quoted as saying about his play - "there's nothing better than the feeling of coming into the room and feeling that something dangerous is happening." His fascination with "Raisin" began because it was part of school curricula in the 1970's. "That play resonated all through my life because I realized the only character I could identify with was Karl - I was a whitey in an all-white neighborhood in Houston, Texas." In "Clybourne" Norris focuses his lens on our past (1959 in Act One) and present (2009 in Act Two) consciousness of race and neighborly relations. Clybourne Park spans two generations fifty years apart. In 1959, Russ and Bev are selling their desirable two-bedroom at a bargain price, unknowingly bringing the first black family into the neighborhood (borrowing a plot line from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun) and creating ripples of discontent among the cozy white residents of Clybourne Park. In 2009, the same property is being bought by a young white couple, whose plan to raze the house and start again is met with equal disapproval by the black residents of the soon-to-be-gentrified area. Are the issues festering beneath the floorboards actually the same, fifty years on? Bruce Norris’s excruciatingly funny and squirm-inducing satire explores the fault line between race and property.
From MIchael Ritchie the Artistic Director of the Center Theatre Group(or maybe just the Mark Taper Forum-it is unclear in the program) "One of the great things about putting these plays on the stage, giving them a forum, is that it gives everyone an opportunity, an opening, a doorway, a lens, through which they can talk about race - both from a hisotrical perspective and also an immediate one. I can't imagine that people seeing these plays, regardless of what their perspecitve is, will be able to walk away and not have a conversation about race or family or property or opportunity . . . subjects that will never lose their importance. We as a community can use these plays as a stepping-off point for further reflection and conversation."
From MIchael Ritchie the Artistic Director of the Center Theatre Group(or maybe just the Mark Taper Forum-it is unclear in the program) "One of the great things about putting these plays on the stage, giving them a forum, is that it gives everyone an opportunity, an opening, a doorway, a lens, through which they can talk about race - both from a hisotrical perspective and also an immediate one. I can't imagine that people seeing these plays, regardless of what their perspecitve is, will be able to walk away and not have a conversation about race or family or property or opportunity . . . subjects that will never lose their importance. We as a community can use these plays as a stepping-off point for further reflection and conversation."
This post is probably long enough and hopefully I haven't confused but have rather inspired you to read or a see a new play. I love plays when the third act is the act that plays out in your car on the drive home. My mind was racing as I replayed the evening in my head - the moments I was moved to tears and moments I laughed, the moments I cringed, the moments that I was mortified by the reactions happening around me. It was an amazing thought-provoking experience. If you get to see either "Raisin" or "Clybourne" let me know - I'd love to hear your thoughts!
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