A dream realised: American classic makes history at STC
Image: Gayle Samuels, Zahra Newman, Bert LaBonte in STC's A Raisin In The Sun, 2022. Photo: Joseph Mayers
“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?”
This line from Langston Hughes’ poem, “Harlem” gave Lorraine Hansberry the title for her 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun, the first written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway.
Sixty-three years later, the dreams of actors Angela Mahlatjie and Adolphus Waylee are not deferred. The pair forms part of the 9-strong cast in the first ever major Australian theatre company production of the play at Sydney Theatre Company.
As Waylee says: “When I got the call that I got the job I couldn’t believe it… especially as it’s the first time it is being done professionally in Australia and I’m going to be a part of that history.”
Written amid the turbulence of a nascent civil rights movement, A Raisin in the Sun follows an intergenerational African American family in 1950s Chicago – the Youngers – as they try their best to turn loss into legacy after the arrival of a long-awaited life insurance cheque.
Wesley Enoch, who directs this production, says he read the play when he was in his 20s and was astounded by it.
“I love its conversation around race and colour and prejudice, aspiration and disadvantage caused by racism,” says Enoch, noting that Hansberry delivers those messages subtly, through the dynamics of a nuclear family.
“What the writer has given us is a very distinct world of a family to do it. Not that it diminishes any of those stories of race, but at the heart of it is this kind of family drama.” Enoch describes it as a snapshot of American history that is still playing out today – one that has poignant relevance for Australian audiences as well.
Previously, there was a limited pool of and lack of opportunities for professional actors of colour in Australia – which could explain why it’s taken so long for the play to have a mainstage debut – but that has since changed.
Angela Mahlatjie, who plays Beneatha – an intelligent and rebellious 20-year-old who wants to study medicine – was born in Botswana in Southern Africa and moved with her family to a small mining town in the Pilbara, WA when she was 14. It was quite a culture shock; suddenly, she went from being the norm to being alien.
“Because you’re young, you’re a teenager, you really want to fit in. And so there’s a lot of – and the play speaks about this a lot – assimilating. You try to slot in and be small and just fit in with all the white kids and pretend nothing’s going on,” says Mahlatjie.
She feels a strong affinity with Beneatha, whom she describes as bold, intellectual and radical. Like Beneatha who is determined to be a doctor, Mahlatjie was determined to become an actor and is a graduate of WAAPA. “I think Beneatha and I are quite bold in that way. I think there’s that sentiment of ‘as long as I have my dream in mind, I’ll do anything it takes to get that thing’.”
Landing a role in this monumental and rare production was one of those dreams for Mahlatjie. “It’s a blessing, it really is a blessing to be able to do this play for the Sydney Theatre Company and have it reach so many people.
“My wish and my hope is that people of colour come and see this play and see themselves on stage, and see themselves telling a story that is for them, by them, and feel like, ‘oh I am seen here’,” she says.
Adolphus Waylee has a similar story. He is originally from Liberia in West Africa and his character, Joseph Asagai, is from Nigeria, also in West Africa. Asagai is one of Beneatha’s suitors.
“He’s an intellectual, he’s passionate, he’s progressive, he’s confident and he’s so proud of his heritage. He’s someone who wants to go back home and make a change to the effort of liberating his people from colonial rule. So that’s the kind of guy that he is,” explains Waylee.
His part in this production is a proud and auspicious thing for Waylee, and it also comes with some responsibility. “I think for me it was more about making sure that this story is being told and is being told well.”
Nancy Denis has one short scene in the play, but her performance is memorable. She plays Mrs Johnson, an interfering, self-righteous neighbour who visits the Youngers as a self-appointed envoy for the local community. It is one of the most humorous scenes in the play performed with vintage comic genius by Denis.
Australian born with Haitian heritage, Denis feels a strong connection with Hansberry’s writing which she says is “so specific it becomes universal”. For Denis, being an artist of colour inherently comes with responsibility.
“I think with any show or play or TV or anything that I do as a Black woman born and raised in Australia, who’s non- Indigenous and who’s representing the pan-African diaspora experience, there is always a responsibility there, there is always the sense that I am leaving behind a legacy, and what glass ceilings do I need to break through to make sure that the ones coming after me don’t have to break that one? We’re constantly on that journey.”
Denis believes A Raisin in the Sun needs to become a part of the repertoire for major theatre companies, in the same way that “old white men” plays have done.
For now, she is thrilled to be part of this momentous production and hopes some starry-eyed little Black girl sitting in the audience will think, as she did once, “yep, I can do that”.
