Those of us who’ve sat through Sophocles set in a Dublin housing project or Shakespeare relocated to Fascist Italy or Blairite Britain are familiar with the standard defense: the specifics of time and place, clothes and furniture aren’t important; what’s enduring is the author’s immortal insights into human nature. The revival of A Raisin in the Sun (at the Royale) upends the argument. Here is a play from the day before yesterday—1959—in which the exterior appearances—the costumes and props —are instantly recognizable, and yet the underlying human impulses might as well come from another planet.
Lorraine Hansberry took her title from “Harlem,” Langston Hughes’s famous poem of 1931:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like r ...This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase
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Mark Steyn’s most recent book is America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It (Regnery)
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 22 June 2004, on page 32
Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com
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