Even though there are big stars in “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window”—the Marvel (among other things) actor Oscar Isaac and the “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” actress Rachel Brosnahan— the center of the play’s solar system is Lorraine Hansberry. There are few playwrights who, decades after their death, still seem so present and luminous. Hansberry died in 1965, when she was only thirty-four, yet we’re still exploring her continuing impact, still looking to her for illumination. Since 2017, three major biographies and a documentary have examined both her artistry and her activism, and last year the sculptor Alison Saar unveiled a statue of Hansberry in Times Square, which invited passersby to sit with her in quiet, bronze communion. Meanwhile, the theatre world produces Hansberry’s masterpiece, “A Raisin in the Sun,” her drama about housing discrimination in Chicago, over and over (most recently at the Public Theatre in 2022), and directors comb through her short catalogue, hoping to find some hidden diamond that history thought was glass.
This story is from the March 13, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the March 13, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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