raisins in the sun

So what color comes to your mind when you think about raisins?
If you're like most folks, you only said "black".
There are golden raisins, too.
Does that make you prejudiced?

That's one of the questions I would have asked, had there been a discussion group after the play tonight.
"Clybourne Park" tackles the issues raised when the demographics of a neighborhood are in a state of flux. The two acts concern the same house, but at different time periods.

In the first act, we receive the reason the house was in a price range that the Youngers (the black family in "A Raisin In The Sun") were able to afford. The owners have lost a son and desperately need a change of venue. They're willing to sell at a loss, just to be gone. The neighbors come by to try to convince them to back out of the deal, to keep the buyers - a black family - out of the white residential area. Keep in mind that it's the mid-1950's, after the Korean War.

With the second act, we have time traveled fifty years. Now, the tables have turned. A young white couple has bought the somewhat dilapidated house and plan to tear it down and rebuild. This time, the meeting of neighbors in the living room concerns the disturbance to the now historically black neighborhood.
See that word? "Historically"? If the white folks had tried playing that card fifty years earlier, they would have been accused of being racists.

Very interesting play.
Very interesting use of language.
Very interesting timing of its performance, during the last few days of Black History Month.
I'm so glad to be part of the Lucas Theatre family and to have been granted the privilege of working on this evening.
I plan to recommend that all I know go see this.
I just may get to discuss it yet.