A Most Welcome Introduction to 'A Raisin in the Sun' -- Chicago Theater Review

Chicago Theater Review

A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry
directed by Ron OJ Parson
TimeLine Theatre, Chicago
Thru December 7
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I certainly won't suggest that I've seen every play that could be considered great and/or important.

But of those I'm aware of, I have attended many that could be regarded as works everyone should see:

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, My Three Sons and The Crucible; Tennesee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and The Iceman Cometh, Edward Albee's Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Neil Simon's The Odd Couple and Lost in Yonkers, David Mamet's American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross, Shakespeare's Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice and more contemporary classics like David Auburn's Proof, John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, Tracy Letts' August: Osage County and Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. 

To this esteemed--and not nearly comprehensive--list, I can now add Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.

No, I never even read it in high school, or saw the movie, or saw the musical version titled simply Raisin.

The closest I came was seeing Bruce Norris' terrific (and recent Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning) Clybourne Park, which plays off A Raisin in the Sun by imagining what might have happened in the years before--and long after--Hansberry's narrative.

Based in part on real-life events involving Hansberry's own family, and taking its name from a line in a Langston Hughes poem, A Raisin in the Sun chronicles the Youngers, a multi-generational African-American family living together on Chicago's South Side in the early 1950s.

The central character is seemingly Walter Lee Younger, who from the characterization and the casting at TimeLine Theatre appears to be somewhere in his 30s. Though I say this without any acute point of comparison, Jerod Haynes seems to play the role perfectly. (In a new Broadway revival next year, Denzel Washington will play the role. While Denzel can do anything he wants--and I would hope to see it--it would seem that he's a bit old to be playing Walter, at least as written with a son of about 10.)

Walter works as a chauffeur and while his wife Ruth--wonderfully played here by Toni Martin--seems to be content with their lot in life, Walter bristles with a desire, perhaps even a desperation, to do something more with his.

His disquiet is exacerbated by the anticipation of his mother--also superbly acted by Greta Oglesby--coming into a sizable sum of money due to the passing of Walter's father.

Although this is a famous play that has been around for over 50 years I don't want to reveal everything that happens. But while it involves less stage time than I expected, the crux of the storyline centers around Mama Younger's decision to purchase a house for her family that happens to be in a white neighborhood.

The bigotry the Youngers encounter is ugly, perhaps all the more so for the way it is depicted here, cased in 1950's decorum and "wouldn't it be better for you (not to move here)" bullshit, embodied by Karl Lindner, a representative from the new neighborhood (well-acted by Chris Rickett).

Although it debuted on Broadway in 1959, Hansberry began writing A Raisin in the Sun in the early 50s, prior to Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights Era and Malcolm X, so it's quite impressive and somewhat eerie how prescient she was. And sad that all these years later, even with a black man in the White House, it feels like this play could be set in the present day. Other than some of the manner of dress, there is really nothing about Raisin that feels dated.

And as always, TimeLine--one of Chicago's best theaters--does an outstanding job staging it. The acting
is terrific, and given the close quarters of the auditorium, you almost feel you are in the Youngers' home with them.

As a small quibble on a first-time viewing--and explanation for not quite giving it @@@@@--I felt the 3-hour play took a bit too much time getting to the central crisis. I appreciated how Hansberry sets up all her characters, including Walter's sister Bennie (Mildred Marie Langford, also stellar) and a pair of suitors meant to serve as symbols, but I can't say I was truly riveted until the storyline focused more overtly on the family's decision to relocate.

Still, this is clearly a play that deserves its revered stature, and more frequent productions than it seems to get (since I started attending theater regularly in the early 21st century, I've never had a chance to see it in Chicago). Deservedly, it has been consistently sold out at TimeLine since opening in August, and its few remaining performances seem to be.

But TimeLine does have a standby policy, so if you're able to get to A Raisin in the Sun, you really should. And it not, perhaps next spring on Broadway with Denzel. Even if this may truly have been a better introduction.

'Anything Goes' Blissfully Takes Me To Another Time and Place -- Chicago Theater Review

Theater Review

Anything Goes
Music & lyrics by Cole Porter
Directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall
Cadillac Palace, Chicago
Thru May 5
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Watching Anything Goes at the Cadillac Palace on Tuesday night, I felt terrifically happy.

With a blissful Cole Porter score--including such standards as "I Get A Kick Out of You," "You're The Top," "It's De-lovely" and the title song--wonderfully executed by a 32-member Equity cast led by the gorgeous Rachel York, the top-notch touring production, highlighted by a knockout tap-dance routine (to "Anything Goes"), left very little not to like.

Yet I couldn't help but to also feel a sense of wistfulness.

While those gathered at the Palace seemed to appreciate this mirthful piece of anachronistic entertainment--and an aunt of mine in attendance quite affirmatively did--on the first night of a two-week run in Chicago, the balcony was no more than half-full.

And though I, born in 1968, recognized nearly all the lyrical references made in "You're The Top," I couldn't help but imagine that whatever rather small percentage of today's "masses" still cares about the majesty of Cole Porter's music and this terrific show--originally produced on Broadway in 1934--it is largely at risk of dying off within the next couple decades.

Yes, one hopes, there will always be some younger folks who love musical theater and are willing to look backward, or appreciate revivals of shows from another time and place.

After all, nearly 80 years after its creation, Anything Goes continues to sail on, as it has through the advent of Bebop and Elvis and the Beatles and disco, punk, hip hop and more modern theatrical songsmiths like Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber, plus eminently "hipper" shows like Spring Awakening and The Book of Mormon.

In fact, this tour is derived from a rather successful Roundabout Theatre Company 2011 staging on Broadway, where I saw it with the remarkable Sutton Foster and a cast that included Joel Grey, John McMartin, Laura Osnes, Kelly Bishop, Colin Donnell and Adam Godley. The production won a Tony for Best Revival--Anything Goes was also revived on Broadway in 1987 with Patti LuPone--and earned Foster a Tony as well, while running for 521 performances.

So I am not here to give last rites to such a joyous piece of American entertainment. I just fear that in an age of ever-more-fractionalized and superficial interests, and a willful obliviousness to the past, the stage works of Porter, George Gershwin and others of their ilk may go the way of the dinosaur even more rapidly than an appreciation of Rogers & Hammerstein, Sondheim and Webber.

And I am prattling on about this because I think it would be a real shame.

I certainly can't claim to have been fully enamored with musical theater until after the age of 30, and my musical tastes range from hard rock to jazz, blues to bluegrass. But it's hard for me to imagine that anybody who gives a show like Anything Goes an open-eared, open-eyed and open-hearted chance wouldn't find it delightful.

Though the lovely and rich-voiced York, who I've seen in several shows, doesn't quite have Sutton Foster's charisma and Fred Applegate--a likable Producers veteran--isn't nearly as legendary as Joel Grey, the touring production is about 95% as good as I recall the Broadway version being, with similar sets, a full orchestra and wondrous singing and dancing.

The story is hokey, but in a way that also seems timeless.

York stars as Reno Sweeney, a singer who boards the S.S. American cruise ship from New York to London.

Joining her is Billy (Josh Franklin), on whom Reno has a crush, but who is in love with Hope Harcourt (Alex Finke), also on board with her fiance (Edward Staudenmayer) and her parents. Throw in gangster Moonface Martin (Applegate), his sassy companion, Erma (Joyce Chittick), Billy's Wall St. boss Elisha Whitney (Dennis Kelly) and plenty of 1930's gags and misdirections--some more recently updated--and well, you've got a boatload of enjoyable entertainment.

With most of the best songs in Act I, which ends with the sensational "Anything Goes" production number, Act II feels a bit like an afterthought, but the whole show is well worth your time and money. (Discounts for all performances should be readily available on HotTix and Goldstar.)

I certainly can love a great new show as much as I do a great old one. But in a Broadway in Chicago season that has presented Peter Pan, Jekyll & Hyde, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Catch Me If You Can and  Big Fish, this is by far the best musical I've seen on stage in 2013.

So don't miss the boat. Anything Goes is that delightful, delicious and de-lovely.

And hopefully, no time soon at risk of being decommissioned.

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This is a promotional clip featuring the recent Broadway cast, but should give you some sense of Anything Goes: