Lorraine Hansberry’s timeless classic "A Raisin in the Sun" is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a run at the Williamstown Theatre Festival , and Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner S. Epatha Merkerson has taken on the role of Lena Younger in the production. WGBH Arts Editor Jared Bowen spoke with Merkerson about her character and how the production's fearless interrogation of hope in the face of racial and economic strife is as provocative and powerful today as when it premiered. Excerpts below.
On her outlying connection with "A Raisin in the Sun":
Over the years I've met Ruby Dee and we became friends; she and Ossie (Davis). And I know Glynn Turman who played the original part of Travis on Broadway, and I eventually worked with Lloyd Richards. I met Philip Rose who was one of the producers, so I've had this sort of peripheral connection with the play practically all my life.
On the impact of playing multiple characters:
I had the opportunity to do Ruth (Younger) 30 years ago. And to come to it at Lena (Younger) is a very different perspective. The women in this play, each of them have a very different focus. And so for me to play Lena and see the totality of the women—women who have dreams, women who want for their families, and women who at the time were being squashed; their feelings their desires—it's really sort of fascinating being a woman of the 21st century.
On director Robert O'Hara's interpretation of the production:
It's so fascinating, the way Robert came to this concept of it. And it's really very smart. The truth is, being women of 2019, we know a lot of what happened. We know that those weren't necessarily fairy tale endings when black families moved into white neighborhoods. And we can take that knowledge of the civil rights movement and what happened in the 70s and the 80s, and what's going on now, and place it in the play. It just makes us more knowledgeable of the things that we're saying, and how important each and every line that Lorraine wrote is.
But I think it is brilliant, the way we've stayed within the footprint of it, but we've opened it up in such a way that it makes it a different play. A new play in a sense because we can look at it from these 21st century eyes. This play has carried weight since it was written. We just have the opportunity to see it differently now is all.
But what I love about the play as well is that its weight is not unusual to any immigrant family that comes to this country that wants a better life for their children, for their families. And that's where the play has its universality. It's very specific to the black experience. But when you look at it as a whole you see that people really are moved by the play because they probably come from families where this has happened at some point.
On Lorraine Hansberry and the universality of her language:
She was insightful at a very young age. She was genius, really. When you find out more about her and the things that she did in her small time here on earth, they're really quite extraordinary.
I remember Francois saying one day how incredible it was for him to say some of these words because they're so not unlike his life. Raising children—he has three children—and what he wants for his children, and how badly he wants things for his children, and some of the words that he has been given through Walter Lee are not unlike anything he would say. The dialect may be different, the regional sound may be different, but the words impact so many young men. It's pretty extraordinary.
A very dear friend of mine came to see it our opening weekend and she walked up to me and she said, "I just need to know how you were able to get permission to change the script." And I said, "Aha! That's the point. The words are the same. Nothing has changed in the words." And so that really speaks of Robert O’Hara's vision. He believes in this play. He believes in the footprint of the play. You can't change Lorraine Hansberry’s words, but what you could do is change the situation somewhat; bring out things that they probably weren't able to bring out in 1959.
"A Raisin in the Sun" is running at the Williamstown Theatre Festival until July 13. For more information visit
wtfestival.org
.
