Glover Stars in Uncut Version of ‘Raisin’ on PBS

Since Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” opened on Broadway 30 years ago, launching Sidney Poitier’s career, the play has become a classic. At least 100 American productions are mounted every year. But no one has ever seen the full three-hour version--until now. PBS’ “American Playhouse” will begin its 1989 season with the first uncut version of the play, starring Danny Glover and Esther Rolle.

“Raisin” is the story of a black ghetto family whose prospects for the future are considerably improved when misfortune strikes: Walter Younger Sr. dies, providing his widow (Rolle) with $10,000 from his insurance policy. How will she spend the money? Will she give her son (Glover), who is a chauffeur, money to start a business? Will she pay the costs of her daughter’s medical school education? Will she buy a home for the family?

In the PBS version that will be broadcast Feb. 1, nearly an hour’s worth of material has been restored to the text used in the original production, including scenes involving African nationalism, black pride, ghetto conditions and racial incidents.

“The cuts didn’t affect the human drama and how moving it was,” says Robert Nemiroff, the late playwright’s husband and literary executor. “But they did affect the depth and vision of the play. They also sacrificed some of the most humorous elements.”

Even without this material, though, “A Raisin in the Sun” won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1959 and prompted black novelist James Baldwin to write: “Never before in the entire history of the American theater had so much of the truth of black people’s lives been seen on the stage.”

“I don’t know of any other play at that time that portrayed a black family as a black family,” producer Chiz Schultz says. “ ‘Porgy and Bess’ portrayed blacks as exotics. Many people, especially young playwrights, say Lorraine Hansberry changed their lives.”

Director Bill Duke believes: “This play transcends time and race. It applies to all poor people. What Lorraine says is something that should be said often: Folks that don’t have money, folks that society looks down its nose at, are some of the noblest spirits among us.”

Danny Glover is standing on the kitchen table, pretending to be an African warrior. It’s an imposing sight. Glover is 6-feet-4, and his head would be scraping the ceiling--if there were a ceiling in this three-room apartment set, located on a sound stage at KCET Channel 28.

With its worn couch and two matching armchairs decorated with doilies, the old-fashioned icebox and the naked radiator, the apartment looks typically 1950s. The family that lives here--the Youngers (mama, daughter, son and wife, plus grandson)--are hard-working people who want only what other people want: good jobs, a nice home, self-respect.

In 1957, when the story takes place, the civil rights movement was still a few years away. Commenting on how society has advanced over the past three decades, Glover says: “The form of racism has changed in a way. It isn’t as overt as it was, but certainly we experience it. The hopelessness is still there. The inability to realize a dream is still there. It’s an ongoing battle.

“Some minorities have been allowed access to the system, but that access has been limited. My character’s struggle to realize his dreams goes beyond this time and place.”

Glover took the part, which meant working for scale, because he wanted to get himself away from Hollywood’s perception of how actors plot out their careers. Following such successful films as “Lethal Weapon,” “The Color Purple,” “Places in the Heart,” “Witness” and HBO’s “Mandela,” he could have dismissed a low-paying offer from PBS.

“I thought about how this would fit into my schedule and how it would affect my next part,” he admits. “I thought about it, but I needed to do this. I needed to find joy in the work itself. You lose that sometimes.

“I always ask myself, ‘How does a project affect people?’ Everything actors do is political. What we do formulates or alters attitudes. We need to understand and accept that responsibility.

“This play deals with dreams and passion and love. It’s about the cohesiveness and the importance of the family. What keeps the play alive is the strength of human emotion. It is universal and lasting.”

Nemiroff, executive producer of the PBS production, has devoted much of his life to editing and promoting his late wife’s work. Hansberry died at 34 from cancer, having written two plays (“A Raisin in the Sun” and “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window”). Nemiroff shaped some of her other writing into two further plays, “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” and “Les Blancs.” He also produced and co-wrote the Broadway musical “Raisin,” based on “A Raisin in the Sun.” At the moment, he is editing several volumes of Hansberry’s fiction, essays and poetry.

“Until recently, Lorraine has been pigeonholed as a black writer,” Nemiroff says. “But people are beginning now to recognize the size of her work and her vision. ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ is done all over the world. Last summer I got a batch of clippings from Ireland, and one review noted how much the play had to say about the Irish people.”

Director Bill Duke attributes Nemiroff’s persistence to keeping Hansberry’s work alive. “Without him,” Duke says, “her work would have been buried with all of James Baldwin’s plays. A few years ago I wanted to do ‘Amen Corner.’ I went into a bookshop to get a copy, and I discovered it was out of print. The guy told me, ‘Half the people who come into the store don’t know who James Baldwin is.’ ”

Not only has Nemiroff devoted much of his life to establishing Hansberry’s reputation, but he also has worked hard to see that a full production of “A Raisin in the Sun” would someday take place.

“Lines weren’t taken out of the original as an act of censorship,” he insists. “The people who produced the play loved what it was saying. But the obstacles of putting on a serious black drama were enormous, and stretching it beyond a comfortable two-hour play seemed to be an added risk. It was an economic decision.”

Finally, in 1986, Nemiroff was able to mount a New York revival that restored much of what Hansberry had written about African nationalism and black pride. The PBS version, which is based on that production but includes even more unperformed material, uses the same actors, apart from Glover. Columbia Pictures granted Nemiroff the TV rights without a fee.

“The play is still very relevant for most people,” Nemiroff says. “It’s a question of ambition and dreams and human oppression and the struggle against it. In 50 years, if we will have finally solved the race problem in America, this play will be just as impactful and moving to people.

“It’s the same reason as when we see ‘Romeo and Juliet’ today. When it was written, marriage for love was an illegitimate notion. That doesn’t date the play, even though those issues have been settled, at least in some areas.”

Duke is less optimistic. “The one thing that has changed in the past 30 years is the Younger family,” he says. “In 1988, that family is worse off in terms of the economy. But even more important, today’s family has lost hope. They have no faith in the institutions of our society--the schools, the family, the church--because they no longer service human needs. A tremendous despair exists.

“The Youngers are full of dreams. They have the courage to dream and go after those dreams. Today I look at my friends and family, and there’s not the same spirit. It’s a product of administrations and institutions that have spent a lot of time not caring. ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ addresses a great deal of what I’m speaking about. But I can’t help but wonder if Lorraine were writing the play now, whether it would have the same (optimistic) conclusion.”