By Teniola Ayoola 

When Lena “Mama” Younger, played by Elizabeth Lynne Ellis Wiggins, folds over on her knees and cries out to God to “look down here — and show me the strength… strength! strength!” the line is impactful and relatable as I also find myself silently crying out to the Lord for the strength to sit through the remainder of UpStage Artists’ production of A Raisin in the Sun.

First produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was the first play to debut on Broadway directed by a Black man and written by an African American woman, Lorraine Hansberry. The play is about the struggles of a Black family with limited resources and big dreams. With all five family members living in one apartment and sharing a communal bathroom, what happens when there is an opportunity to make those dreams come through and escape out of poverty with a golden ticket of a $10,000 insurance check? The matriarch, Lena “Mama” Younger, wants to buy a house; her 35-year-old son, Walter Lee Younger, wants to open a liquor store; her 20-year-old daughter, Beneather Younger, wants to go to medical school. Walter Lee’s 30-year-old wife, Ruth Younger, is stuck in the middle of it all, tired, pregnant, and mom to their 10-year-old son, Travis Younger. As the only man, Walter Lee feels misunderstood and believes that he lacks the support of the ladies in his family: “That is just what is wrong with the colored woman in this world.… Don’t understand about building their men up and making ’em feel like they somebody. Like they can do something,” he says. When Walter is finally allowed to prove himself as a man of the house, things take an unexpected turn and the future of their dreams becomes uncertain.

With all of the action in this three-act play taking place on a threadbare, stationary set at Emmanuel United Methodist Church, there is a tremendous reliance on unassailable acting to not only engage the audience but also provide dynamism and fluidity. However, director Rick Bergmann and team took this for granted and relied on the historical acclaim of this play to speak for itself. Upstage Artists’ production did speak all right, and with a few exceptions, the language was disappointing.

Let us start with the exceptions. Much credit has to go to set designers Rick Bergmann and Joanne Breen for creating a set that is just as worn out as Hansberry described if not more so. The backdrop of the “stage” is a long row of tan curtains held up by several clothing racks with three doors between them. There is a floral double-seater couch, a dining table, and a kitchen all set up in this open arrangement. The one window in Hanberry’s kitchen is represented by a laminated picture of a window frame taped up to the wall with black duct tape. The entire milieu is an excellent representation of the “rat trap” apartment that the Younger family is happy to leave in Act II.

Stacey Saunders, playing Ruth Younger, does an excellent job embodying the 30-year-old wife Hansberry describes by saying that “disappointment has already begun to hang in her face.” In the first scene, we see her with pin curls in her hair, a robe, and house slippers that she barely lifts off the floor with each step. Saunders shines in two very pivotal movements. The first one is in Act II when Wiggins as Mama announces to the family that she bought a house. Saunders’ yelp of joy and “Hallelujah!” reverberates in the entirety of the room, and she says, “Goodbye misery, I don’t wanna see your ugly face again!” This is in sharp contrast to her usual tired energy. Saunders’ range of skills further shines when she showcases her desperation to protect this joy at all costs. In Act III, when Mama announces that they may not be able to move into the house after all, Saunders grovels, pleads, and begs, “I’ll work … I’ll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago … I’ll strap my baby on my back if I have to and scrub all the floors in America and wash all the sheets in America if I have to — but we got to MOVE! We got to get OUT OF HERE!!” Saunders’ portrayal helps the audience understand what is truly at stake here and the consequences of a family that caves in and chooses to be defeated by the roadblocks on the path to their dreams. However, one is unable to discern if the stutters and “uh… uh…” that occasionally slip out are part of the fatigue charade or if the actress is forgetting her lines.

There were a few other highlights in the production: In the very first scene, even if one already knows it is going to happen, one still gasps when Mama Younger walks over to Beneather Younger (played by Tiffany Carletta) and plants a resounding slap on her face for saying that “there simply is no blasted God —.” And when Bobo (played by Edward V. Crews) stops by to announce that Willy absconded with all $6,500 of the leftover insurance money, Wiggins raises her hand to the ceiling in a chilling and captivating manner, kneels slowly to the ground, and cries out for the strength to bear this news. Even as the lights go down, we still hear the sound of her deep lament ringing in our ears.

Those few pivotal moments amount to five to ten minutes of what was otherwise an excruciating two-hour-20-minute show. The sound effects were absent in parts (in Act 1 when Beneatha asks why their upstairs neighbor has to vacuum every single day, we do not hear a darn thing), the lights were as static as the set, only turning on and off, and some of the costumes hardly fit. When one reviews the playbill and realizes that director Bergmann is also the set designer and constructor, the costume designer, the sound and light designer as well as the light technician, one understands why these little cues are missed and instead feels grateful that at least we had sound effects for the doorbell and the mailman. Overall, one also has to applaud the entire cast for speaking audibly enough without the use of microphones.

At times, one would think this was a script reading rather than a full production. For example, when Mama says to Walter Lee Younger (played by Melvin Smith) that “something is eating you up like a crazy man,” the statement seems a non sequitur as Smith is hardly believable in that representation. Smith equates emotions of frustration and restlessness with heavings and sighing. But we never fully get that sense of craziness and losing his mind over not being seen or heard as a “man of the house.” Even in Act III when Smith stomps his feet and pounds his chest and yells, “I am a man — and I think my wife should wear some pearls in this world!” he fails to impress on the audience the depth of anger, frustration, and defeat that this character purports to feel.

The performance of Tiffany Carletta playing Beneatha “Benny” Younger misses the characterization entirely. In the first scene, we do not see the conflict build between Beneatha and Walter Lee. She instead storms into the set with a ready-made attitude and instead of sounding sophisticated, intellectual, and anti-assimilationist, all we get is the stereotypical “angry Black woman” vibe. While she very visibly struggles to remember her lines in some parts, she often remembers to clap 👏🏾 as 👏🏾 she 👏🏾 speaks👏🏾 for extra Black girl emphasis. Additionally, in Act III when her dreams of being a doctor are supposed to be shattered, we hardly remember that she even wanted to be a doctor at all. Carletta says her lines exactly as they were written and not with an ounce of characterization of Hanberry’s Beneatha. Even the Nigerian traditional dance performance in Act II seems farcical instead of a true reflection of a Benny who is absorbed and transposed into a new identity of a “Nigerian woman.”

My suggestion is to sit this one out, and in the words of Walter Lee Younger, that ain’t no fly-by-night proposition.

Running Time: Two hours and 40 minutes, including one 15-minute and one 5-minute intermission.

A Raisin in the Sun plays through March 3, 2024, presented by UpStage Artists performing at Emmanuel United Methodist Church, 11416 Cedar Lane, Beltsville, MD. Purchase tickets ($10) online.

The program for A Raisin in the Sun is online here.

COVID Safety: Masks are recommended, not mandatory.

Teniola Ayoola is an arts and culture enthusiast. In her free time, you can find her at an art gallery, an art museum, or at the theater. She has an undergraduate degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. She has had opportunities to work with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), intern with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, and receive mentorship as a White House Correspondents Association Scholar. She recently graduated with her master’s in Management from Harvard University and is now part of the “Theater U” program for art critics with DC Theater Arts. Follow her on X @TopTeniola!

CAST
Melvin Smith as Walter Lee Younger
Stacey Saunders as Ruth Younger
Elizabeth Wiggins as Lena Younger
Tiffany Strother as Beneatha Younger
Binta Kassambara as Travis Younger
Antoine Avery as Joseph Asagai
Joey Battley as George Murchison
Ed Crews as Bobo
Peter Rouleau as Karl Lindner