Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Hansberry, Lorraine - Walter Kerr

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WALTER KERR

Virtually all of "Les Blancs" is … vivid, stinging, intellectually alive, and what is there is mature work, ready to stand without apology alongside the completed work of our best craftsmen. The language in particular is … unmistakably stage language….

The anguish of [Tshembe's] decision is the burden of the play, but it becomes anguish only at the final curtain. Prior to that it is verbal sharpshooting of the most trenchant kind, fun when it is hurting….

[Some of the characters's] roles are not fully developed or neatly tucked into the play's structure. [The] journalist is a figurehead with no developed purpose of his own; his task is to set up pomposities for [Tshembe] to puncture. The Major is still sheer villain. Two key figures do not appear at all: a tribal leader around whom the blacks might have rallied; the missionary who has devoted his life to helping the blacks stay precisely where they are. The gaps are obvious, plain...

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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