A Raisin in the Sun | New Yorker Review of A Raisin in the Sun

In this review, originally published in the March 21, 1959, issue of the magazine, the author offers his assessment of A Raisin in the Sun's debut performance, praising the play's dramatic virtues.

The supreme virtue of A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry's new play at the Ethel Barrymore, is its proud, joyous proximity to its source, which is life as the dramatist has lived it. I will not pretend to be impervious to the facts; this is the first Broadway production of a work by a colored authoress, and it is also the first Broadway production to have been staged by a colored director. (His name is Lloyd Richards, and he has done a sensible, sensitive, and impeccablejob.) I do not see why these facts should be ignored, for a play is not an entity in itself, it is a...

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