The American Dream, then and now
“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?”
—Langston Hughes
An African American family lives in a small apartment on the south side of Chicago, hoping that a soon-to-arrive life insurance check will be their ticket to a better life. Along the way, the members of the household struggle with the realities of their economic and social situation and seek a way to financial stability and peace with who they are.
The simple, powerful story, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, has moved audiences since it debuted in 1959. More potent and relatable in the decades since, this production of the classic show will open at the Toledo Repertoire Theatre, for a two-week run, on February 28.
“It’s still so important for this time,” said director Irina Zaurov. “This play is so important, even six decades after it happened in American society.”
Classic story
Born in the former Soviet Union, Zaurov has been an acting coach and professor of theater in the Toledo area for almost 20 years. She first encountered A Raisin in the Sun while attending UT as an undergrad, and said she is thrilled that the Toledo Rep offered her the chance to bring it to the stage. “It’s so wonderful, and I’m so glad the Rep has put it on stage again, as an African American classic play,” Zaurov said.
Zaurov has experience at the helm of classic plays about the African American experience— she directed the Rep’s successful production of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Fences last year. “We had an amazing turn-out, many sold-out shows. I think that Toledo audiences are yearning for theatre classics and the Rep is delivering,” Zaurov said.
As with her Fences cast, Zaurov loves working with her collaborators on Raisin, a completely different group of actors than she worked with a year ago. “I like to work with strong actors,” Zaurov said. “I have one actor who came back for this show, Liam Ellis, who played the brother last year. It’s a different age and a different generation.”
Based in realism
The story has a hard basis in realism, as playwright Hansberry was inspired by her own family’s legal struggles to be heard on a matter of racially motivated housing restrictions. In that spirit, the Toledo Rep’s Raisin is aiming for a realistic, period-appropriate vibe from the show on a technical level, allowing audiences to lose themselves in the story.
As the Younger family deal with changing fortunes, trust betrayed and dreams deferred— but perhaps not forever— Zaurov said she hopes audiences will appreciate how this is a story not only about the experiences of a black family in the 1950s but also about the American dream in a microcosm. “I would like [the audience] to still see, not only about race but by each and every family, how they struggle when they don’t have money, how people struggle if they move to some neighborhood where they’re not welcome at all,” she said.
$19.75 for adults, $17.75 for seniors,
$9.75 for students/children
February 28-March 8
8pm, Thursday-Saturdays | 2:30pm, Sundays.
Toledo Repertoire Theatre, 16 Tenth St.
419-243-9277 | toledorep.org