Theater: “A Raisin in the Sun” at the Public Theatre

With a cast in which all but one character is Black, A Raisin in the Sun was considered a risky proposition, back in the 1950s, and it took eighteen months to raise enough money to launch it.

After touring to positive reviews, the play premiered on Broadway on March 11, 1959. Directed by Lloyd Richards, the cast included comprised Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Ivan Dixon and Diana Sands. On opening night, after multiple curtain calls, the audience cried out for the author, whereupon Poitier jumped into the audience and pulled playwright Lorraine Hansberry onto the stage for her ovation.

What a stellar moment for Broadway, and what a memorable cast to boot. All of whom, if they were still alive today, would leap out of their seats and applaud the magnificent revival currently at the Public Theater.

The play may be nearly 70 but it’s lost none of its relevance. As it opens, the Younger family, crammed into an apartment on Chicago’s South Side, await a huge insurance check from the death of the family patriarch. Walter Lee (Francois Battiste), a limo driver and a screwup from the word go, wants to use the money to invest in a liquor store, but his mother Lena (Tonya Pinkins) is having none of it. She wants to use the money to buy a house in a predominantly white neighborhood.

Walter Lee’s sister, Beneatha (Paige Gilbert), is a college student in premed. She is courted by two young men: Joseph (John Clay III) is a Nigerian immigrant who encourages her to explore her African roots, while preppy George (Mister Fitzgerald) wants her to share his Black middle-class life.

Some of the finest acting I’ve seen all season takes place on the Public stage, and several actors deserve a shoutout. Pinkins, whom we’ve been watching since forever, is positively Shakespearean as Lena: her booming voice and ability to inhabit the character nearly cause her to steal every scene. I say “nearly” because she draws fierce competition from Toussaint who plays the limo driver that can’t catch a break—mostly as a result of his own doing. Gilbert is excellent and hilarious as his cynical sister.

This is also the first production of RITS I’ve seen where the direction and the director Robert O’Hara are stars in their own right. (His curtain scene is a killer.) O’Hara, as theatergoers may remember, was nominated for a Tony for “Slave Play” but he has continued to amaze us since the hilarious “Barbecue” at the Public in 2016.

RITS has had several revivals since its inception (we saw the one with Puff Daddy in 2004) and has been adapted into a Broadway musical. But it all started with a single phrase from “Harlem,” a poem by Langston Hughes: “What happens to a dream deferred?/Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?” To quote another literary figure, stand not on the order of deferring but go at once. It closes November 20.