“A Raisin in the Sun” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

A Raisin in the Sun comes loaded with importance: released in 1959 it is the first play on Broadway that depicted an African American family as real people and it was written by a black female author. It deals with both family dynamics and cultural prejudice. According to Wikipedia some modern publications list it as among the best plays ever written.

For this production director Tim Bond worked with Joi Gresham, Director of the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust, to uncover original versions of the script and to dig deep to find details that might have dropped out over the years, especially for political or social reasons. Oregon Shakespeare then assembled a cast that I cannot imagine being better.

The result is a show that is revelatory, captivating, engaging, and a bit depressing.

I have to start off saying that I cannot imagine a better production of this play. The actors, the set, the feel… all spectacular. This is another time Oregon Shakespeare Festival delivers so well that I feel like I never have to see another production of this play.

Greta Oglesby as the wise grandmother, Lena Younger, and Preston Butler’s Walter Lee Younger are so opposite and so understandable as they wrestle with what to do with the $10,000 life insurance payout. The urges and desires of different generations and different levels of ambition and energy are honest and real. Under the flawless direction of Tim Bond, Lena and Walter are the focus of the family dilemma.

Lena wants love and stability and Walter wants to use money to make money. The two play off each other and the other family members. You see Walter so focused on income that it seems possible that he is willing to give up his marriage to Ruth (played by Lynnette R. Freeman).

His sister, Beneatha Younger played by Saran Evelyn Bakari, and his son Travis (Corey Jerod Harris, Jr.) enrich the feeling of family, tension, and generational difference. Every member of the family helps us understand exactly how intricate and delicate the dynamics are.

A couple of notes:

First, the young actor playing Travis is uncannily perfect. He’s too young to be that consistent and good from scene to scene!

Second, this production strengthens Beneatha by including scenes with a suitor, Joseph Asagai (Adebowale Adebiyi). We were told that Joseph is often cut from the play to keep the length down. But, his presence and his interaction with Beneatha adds depth to her character and helps us feel her as a person.

Most of Raisin does deal with the folks in the Younger family. We feel what the strongest, Lena and Walter, want from their inheritance. We feel how the other family members react, almost take sides, and consider the impact of the $10,000 on their own lives.

But, Raisin‘s impact goes beyond a glimpse into a life of an African American family in the 1950’s.

Lena, who is the final decision maker about what to do with the money, decides to buy a new family house. The one she decides she likes and is affordable is located in Clybourne Park. Her choice sparks the second conflict in the show as the Youngers deal with white prejudice.

Soon after Lena purchases the single family home the Youngers are visited by Karl Linder (Daniel Parker when I saw the show, now MJ Sieber), a representative of the Clybourne Park homeowners’ association. He tries to bribe them into reversing their decision so that the all-white neighborhood stays all white.

This intrusion has the eventual impact of bringing the Youngers — even Walter — together and coalescing behind Lena’s desire to move into the house.

We get several icky scenes of white prejudice and the temptation power of the offered money. The moments very well reflect the unhappiness that playwright Lorraine Hansberry felt in the real-world Chicago which helped motivate her creation of Raisin.

Oregon Shakespeare’s handling of racist aspects of the play is straight forward and the actors make it clear that the white man’s behavior is not out of the cultural norm. Facing the prejudice does bring the Youngers together, but the unabashed, unapologetic white HOA representative also smacks the face of the mostly white audience.

I keep thinking that if OSF had put Raisin on three years ago, I would have appreciated seeing an historical show that captured a moment in time. I would have appreciated seeing what we had gone through and would have patted us Americans on the back for having moved on. However, now after 14 months of Donald Trump and his white, “Christian” nationalism I felt like I was watching a current event. It does not feel good.

Fortunately for the audience, with Lena and Walter coming together, the Youngers remain strong, real, and a good example of a family overcoming differences in priorities and external prejudices. The personalities are presented carefully and forcefully, and we understand their growth and closeness.

Every actor contributes personalities that are strong, expertly delivered, and spot on.

While I feel the actors deserve endless praise, I also want to mention two of the excellent crafts that support the show.

The set by Scott Bradley for the Chicago home perfectly conveys the crowdedness, makeshift-ness, homey-ness, and lived-in quality of the Youngers home. It allows us to enjoy what they have had for years and also understand why Lena wants something different.

Helen Q. Huang’s costumes helped reveal the character’s personalities. I especially appreciate the African clothes Beneatha wore that conveyed her independence and youth. It was fun to have ’50’s clothes on stage that didn’t make the show feel dated!

The feeling of watching a show dealing with current events through the lens of history makes for a powerful evening.

The Younger family story alone is engrossing. Adding the cultural prejudice and knowing that the biased attitude is still strong in 2026 makes Raisin both entertaining and valuable.