A great play, A Raisin in the Sun, at the Huntington

A Raisin in the Sun, at the Huntington Theater, Saturday, March 23, 2013. By Lorraine Hansberry. Directed by Liesl Tommy. Here is a good review by the Boston Globe's Don Aucoin, with which I largely agree.

I think most theater lovers know the story of the Younger family, who are poor and live in a claustrophobic flat in Chicago's black neighborhoods, how the mother comes into insurance money from the death of her husband, how the erratic son Walter blows a good chunk of the money on a liquor store scheme when one of the partners absconds with the money, and how they're move to buy a house in a white neighborhood is accomplished over the objections of the white neighbors, who are willing to pay the Youngers to not move there. There are a lot of stories going on in this play. It's a flood of stories. And that's not bad. Better always to have too much going on than too little. For me, the story of Walter (played by LeRoy McClain), his weakness, and his ultimate resolution and redemption, is the one that stood out.

The Huntington, and this cast, did a great job. It's a long, almost three hour play, but it passes quickly. I wondered about LeRoy McClain, the actor who plays Walter. The role of Walter seems almost too much for one actor. There's too much happening to Walter in three hours. McClain pulled it off, inhabiting a man who jumps from elation to near insanity. Physically and mentally, how does he do it night after night?

I liked everybody. The smart daughter Beneatha, was charming, funny, and combative (I assumed this was Lorraine Hansberry herself; was saddened to recall that she died of cancer at 34). The mother Lena was tough and in charge, and described nicely. There are plenty of Greek children who would recognize a Greek mother in her. Ruth Younger is at the end of her rope.

The rotating stage, revealing different rooms of the small Younger flat as it rotates, seemed like a hell of a lot of engineering trouble for not much theatrical effect. The sex scene between Walter and Ruth Younger was too bizarrely graphic -- it was if the director was inexplicably trying to revoke the dignity of these two people. Seeing the ghost of the deceased Mr. Younger on stage, in the background, distracted me a little in the beginning, but I got over it, and it did set up the powerful scene towards the end of the play when the older man puts his hand on Walter's shoulder, and Walter finds the strength to refuse the money of the white neighbors.

Dutch Psycho

The Dinner, a novel by Herman Koch (2012)

I was first impressed and absorbed by the characters of this novel, the couples Paul and Claire, and Paul's brother Serge and his wife Babette. It's a dinner at a very expensive restaurant, and that doesn't sound eventful, but it is. Koch reveals the underlying drama slowly, manipulating us to keep turning the pages. And I did. Once we realize that their children, the cousins, have done something criminally terrible, I was turning the pages even faster.

At a certain point, Koch reveals that Paul and Claire are not just morally complex people -- they're practically monsters, actively concealing and rationalizing the work of their son with the cool of a Nazi bureaucrat. It turns out that Serge, the famous liberal politician, and the butt of Serge's narrative, is the only one here with a conscience and any sense of right and wrong. Two thirds of the way through, I understood that Paul is a violent psychotic. Claire is right behind him. Their son is a violent weirdo.

It's finally confusing and frustrating. We have to believe in Koch's compartmentalization of the characters' actions. Can these human beings who form an affectionate "happy family" engage in evil only in small instances? I suppose if they are mentally, clinically sick, the could. But even the main narrator, in his thoughts and actions, is quite clear in his understanding of the world -- he does grasp reality, as when he lampoons the work of the restaurant host and waitresses. We just suddenly get these acts of blind violence in which he seems disconnected from reality. I just didn't feel they were real humans any more, but concoctions of the author.

It didn't help that there were some strange incongruities at the heart of the novel -- would Serge, a famous man, want to talk about their sons, with all the attendant yelling and crying, in a restaurant, surrounded by other diners? How is it that a man who is manifestly criminally violent and psychotic (he's put innocent people in the hospital) has not been jailed? He seems to suffer no punishment (unless that's Koch's point about the laxness of Dutch society and the justice system). How is it that no one else has recognized the boys from the online videos?

The memorable Glass Menagerie at American Rep Theater

The Glass Menagerie, a play by Tennessee Williams. At the American Repertory Theater, Cambridge.

This was the second time we've seen this play. We saw an excellent production years ago in Buffalo, at the Studio Arena. Today's production was memorable. The review by Ben Brantley in the NY Times is glowing, and I agree with it. I can't imagine a better Tom than Zachary Quinto. Cherry Jones as the neurotic Amanda, Celia Keenan-Bolger as a frail and beautiful Laura, and Brian Smith as Tom. All great.

I thought about Tom's abandonment of the two women -- this wasn't just a leave-taking to save his own life, though it certainly was that, it was an abandonment. Those two had no other support for their lives. Laura and Amanda are not capable of holding jobs. What Tom did was surprising and cruel, and though we know that his action haunts him the rest of his life, in the end it colors my feelings about him. He abandoned them.

A pool of water surrounded the darkly lit stage. Occasionally, the characters came to the edge and looked into the quiet dark surface, seeing their reflection. It emphasized the the family's isolation, as if they're on their own little psychotic island. It was a good touch by the set designers.

Laura had only her little glass unicorn on her box. In the old production we saw, years ago, her entire menagerie of animals was out, on display. Somehow I liked that better, because Laura lives through those animals, an entire cast of glass animals, each with its own personality.