A Raisin in the Sun

Zusatztext Praise for A Raisin in the Sun One of the handful of great American playsit belongs in the inner circle! along with Death of a Salesman ! Long Day's Journey Into Night ! and The Glass Menagerie . The Washington Post The play that changed American theater forever.Frank Rich! The New York Times A beautiful! lovable play. It is affectionately human! funny and touching....A work of theatrical magic in which the usual barrier between audience and stage disappears.John Chapman! New York News An honest! intelligible! and moving experience.Walter Kerr! New York Herald Tribune Miss Hansberry has etched her characters with understanding! and told her story with dramatic impact. She has a keen sense of humor! an ear for accurate speech and compassion for people.Robert Coleman! New York Mirror It is honest drama! catching up real people....It will make you proud of human beings.Frank Aston! New York World-Telegram & Sun A wonderfully emotional evening.John McClain! New York Journal American Informationen zum Autor Lorraine Hansberry Klappentext The 1961 film version of A Raisin in the Sun! with a screenplay by the author! won an award at the Cannes Film Festival! even though one-third of the actual screenplay had been cut out. This completely restored screenplay is the accurate and authoritative edition of Hansberry's script! and a testiment to her accomplishment as a black woman artist. INTRODUCTION by Robert Nerniroff This is the most complete edition of A Raisin in the Sun ever published. Like the American Playhouse production for television, it restores to the play two scenes unknown to the general public, and a number of other key scenes and passages staged for the first time in twenty-fifth anniversary revivals and, most notably, the Roundabout Theatre's Kennedy Center production on which the television picture is based. "The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun. It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic"; ". . . one of a handful of great American dramas ... A Raisin in the Sun belongs in the inner circle, along with Death of a Salesman, Long Day's Journey into Night, and The Glass Menagerie." So wrote The New York Times and the Washington Post respectively of Harold Scott's revelatory stagings for the Roundabout in which most of these elements, cut on Broadway, were restored. The unprecedented resurgence of the work (a dozen regional revivals at this writing, new publications and productions abroad, and now the television production that will be seen by millions) prompts the new edition. Produced in 1959, the play presaged the revolution in black and women's consciousness-and the revolutionary ferment in Africa-that exploded in the years following the playwright's death in 1965 to ineradicably alter the social fabric and consciousness of the nation and the world. As so many have commented lately, it did so in a manner and to an extent that few could have foreseen, for not only the restored material, but much else that passed unnoticed in the play at the time, speaks to issues that are now inescapable: value systems of the black family; concepts of African American beauty and identity; class and generational conflicts; the relationships of husbands and wives, black men and women; the outspoken (if then yet unnamed) feminism of the daughter; and, in the penultimate scene between Beneatha and Asagai, the larger statement of the play and the ongoing struggle it portends. Not one of the cuts, it should be emphasized, was made to dilute or censor the play or to "soften" its statement, for everyone in that herculean, now-legendary band that brought Raisin to Broadway-and most specifically the producer, Philip Rose, and director, Llo...

Praise for A Raisin in the Sun

“One of the handful of great American plays—it belongs in the inner circle, along with Death of a Salesman, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and The Glass Menagerie.”—*The Washington Post

“The play that changed American theater forever.”—Frank Rich, *The New York Times

“A beautiful, lovable play. It is affectionately human, funny and touching....A work of theatrical magic in which the usual barrier between audience and stage disappears.”—John Chapman, New York News

“An honest, intelligible, and moving experience.”—Walter Kerr, New York Herald Tribune

“Miss Hansberry has etched her characters with understanding, and told her story with dramatic impact. She has a keen sense of humor, an ear for accurate speech and compassion for people.”—Robert Coleman, New York Mirror

“It is honest drama, catching up real people....It will make you proud of human beings.”—Frank Aston, New York World-Telegram & Sun

“A wonderfully emotional evening.”—John McClain, New York Journal American

Autorentext

Lorraine Hansberry

Klappentext

The 1961 film version of A Raisin in the Sun, with a screenplay by the author, won an award at the Cannes Film Festival, even though one-third of the actual screenplay had been cut out. This completely restored screenplay is the accurate and authoritative edition of Hansberry's script, and a testiment to her accomplishment as a black woman artist.

Zusammenfassung
Under the editorship of the late Robert Nemiroff, with a provocative and thoughtful introduction by preeminent African-American scholar Margaret B. Wilkerson and a commentary by Spike Lee, this completely restored screenplay is the accurate and authoritative edition of Lorraine Hansberry's script and a testament to her unparalled accomplishment as a Black artist.

The 1961 film version of A Raisin in the Sun, with a screenplay by the author, Lorraine Hansberry, won an award at the Cannes Film Festival even though one-third of the actual screenplay Hansberry had written had been cut out. The film did essentially bring Hansberry's extraordinary play to the screen, but it failed to fulfill her cinematic vision.

Now, with this landmark edition of Lorraine Hansberry's original script for the movie of A Raisin in the Sun that audiences never viewed, readers have at hand an epic, eloquent work capturing not only the life and dreams of a Black family, but the Chicago—and the society—that surround and shape them.

Important changes in dialogue and exterior shots, a stunning shift of focus to her male protagonist, and a dramatic rewriting of the final scene show us an artist who understood and used the cinematic medium to transform a stage play into a different art form—a profound and powerful film.

Leseprobe
INTRODUCTION

by Robert Nerniroff

This is the most complete edition of A Raisin in the Sun ever published. Like the American Playhouse production for television, it restores to the play two scenes unknown to the general public, and a number of other key scenes and passages staged for the first time in twenty-fifth anniversary revivals and, most notably, the Roundabout Theatre's Kennedy Center production on which the television picture is based.

"The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun. It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic"; ". . . one of a handful of great American dramas ... A Raisin in the Sun belongs in the inner circle, along with Death of a Salesman, Long Day's Journey into Night, and The Glass Menagerie." So wrote The New York Times and the Washington Post respectively of Harold Scott's revelatory stagings for the Roundabout in which most of these elements, cut on Broadway, were restored. The unprecedented resurgence of the work (a dozen regional revivals at this writing, new publications and productions abroad, and now the television production that will be seen by millions) prompts the new edition.

Produced in 1959…