Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Hansberry, Lorraine - Harold Clurman

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

HAROLD CLURMAN

I confess to have been more impressed by Lorraine Hansberry's Les Blancs … than I expected to be; more, indeed, than most of the professional theatre-tasters. At a time when rave reviews are reserved for plays like Sleuth and Conduct Unbecoming, I am tempted to speak of Les Blancs in superlatives.

I suspect, too, that resistance to the play on the ground of its simplistic argument is a rationalization for social embarrassment. Les Blancs is not propaganda, as has been inferred; it is a forceful and intelligent statement of the tragic impasse of white and black relations all over the world, as well as of the complexity of motivation and effect where European nations colonize undeveloped lands inhabited by blacks.

The play transcends the banalities in the intellectual disputes about this conflict; it clarifies, but does not seek to resolve, the historical and human problems involved. It does not provide...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Brooks Atkinson
3. Tom F. Driver
4. Gerald Weales
5. Harold R. Isaacs
6. Stanley Kauffmann
7. John Cutts
8. Walter Kerr
9. Ossie Davis
10. Arthur France
11. C.W.E. Bigsby
12. Gerald Weales
13. Jordan Y. Miller
14. Martin Gottfried
15. Brendan Gill
16. Walter Kerr
17. Harold Clurman
18. George R. Adams
19. David E. Ness
20. Clive Barnes
21. W. Edward Farrison
22. Julius Lester
23. Bertie J. Powell
24. Copyright

1. Lorraine Hansberry