Hansberry’s script describes Walter as “as a lean, intense young man,” who is “inclined to quick nervous movements and erratic speech habit.” That’s certainly the impression that Sidney Poitier, who created the role on stage, gives in the 1961 film version. Even Sean Combs (a.k.a. P. Diddy), the uneasy star of the 2004 Broadway revival, evoked some of that spasmodic energy. Yet Mr. Washington’s more laid-back approach has a persuasive emotional logic, and it adds a different kind of suspense to “Raisin.” As the play tells its familiar story of the Youngers’ attempts to leave the South Side for the suburbs, with the life insurance money left by Lena’s husband, we’re less worried that Walter is going to erupt into violence than sink into stasis, dragging his family down with him. This interpretation makes Walter less the coiled center of “Raisin” than usual, and I think it helps justify the return of Mr. Leon — who also directed the 2004 revival — to a much-performed play after only a decade. (It’s also worth remembering that in the intervening years, Broadway has seen Bruce Norris’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Clybourne Park,” an inventive riff on “Raisin.”) This “Raisin” feels far more of a whole than Mr. Leon’s earlier production (which featured Tony-winning work from Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald). Despite the central presence of a movie megastar, the 2014 “Raisin” has a welcome egalitarianism. It’s a bona fide ensemble piece, in which we’re newly and acutely aware of the dynamics that define the Youngers.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 05:36:46 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015