Joy Jones as Beneatha Younger and Lizan Mitchell as Lena Younger (C. Stanley Photography)
It’s hard to imagine cutting a more formidable figure than Lizan Mitchell does in Arena Stage’s A Raisin in the Sun.
As the proud matriarch Lena Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s classic exploration of the African-American experience in 1950s South Side Chicago, Mitchell reaches depths of emotion that physically shake her petite, elderly frame with raw feeling: deep disappointment, unassailable pride, unimpeachable love for her children. She’s a whirlwind to watch in the juicy role.
But it’s not quite so easy for Lena’s family to cope with her sheer force of will.
Everything hinges on the pending arrival of an inheritance check. Lena’s husband has died, and the $10,000 in insurance money that’s coming may dramatically transform the struggling family’s circumstances. With Lena’s son, daughter, daughter-in-law, and grandson all living together under one dilapidated and cockroach-plagued roof, the money represents future security.
Lena and Ruth Younger (a wry, understated Dawn Ursula) imagine owning their own home; the spirited Benethea Younger (Joy Jones), who dreams of becoming a doctor, imagines paying her medical tuition.
But no one’s vision of the future is quite so wrapped up in that money as Walter Lee Younger (Will Cobbs), an ambitious but unfocused dreamer whose masculinity has been threatened by less-than-stellar circumstances (not to mention feeling displaced as the leader of the household by his mother). When the check arrives, the Younger family is tested by internal conflict, ugly racism, and shady opportunists. The audience watches tensely to see if Walter Lee will escape with his dignity and pride intact.
Mitchell may be a dynamo to watch, but director Tazewel Thompson also showcases Cobbs’ tightly coiled rage, bubbling over in spurts and eventually coming to a head in a final confrontation with a sinister neighbor (Thomas Adrian Simpson). A Raisin in the Sun takes on hefty themes, like whether to embrace one’s roots, or just how deep family loyalty should go. But it is the fate of Walter Lee’s soul, tied up in the Younger family’s future, that commands the most attention in this quietly suspenseful revival.
A Raisin in the Sun runs through May 7 at Arena Stage. $76-111. Buy tickets here.
