Community change, racism and gentrification "Bev, I’m not here to solve society’s problems. I’m simply telling you what will happen, and it will happen as follows: First one family will…
This production is spellbinding and its momentum stays with me occupying my thoughts, whirring like the revolving stage. The text, finalised by Lorraine Hansberry's former husband and literary executor Robert Nemiroff, would bear much further study to grasp all its themes and nuances. Written from her viewpoint in the 1960s by American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, the original person to be described as "young, gifted and black", her unfinished play Les Blancs, examines an unnamed African country on the brink of revolution and independence from colonial rule. Lorraine Hansberry was in her mid thirties when she tragically died of pancreatic cancer.
David Lan's atmospheric production is bounded by one room in the apartment block in Chicago. The beginning of the play sees the family lining up to use the communal bathroom and we get a sense of the tension created by cramped quarters and the enforced intimacy with the neighbours.