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Synopsis

Act I Framed by the back porches, fire escapes and blankly staring tenement windows, the Southside ghetto – its youth, workers, women, Lindy-hoppers at a party, a drunk wending his way home-comes to life in a powerful street ballet that culminates in the riveting portrait of a pusher finding his victim while members of the community look helplessly on – Prologue. This world provides the pulse, heartbeat and framework of the Younger family’s existence, and though in it exist joy, lightness, laughter and hope, it is nonetheless a ghetto: a world of such soul- and body-grinding oppression that survival sometimes requires escape. In the early morning at the Younger apartment, Ruth rouses her son, Travis, while she calls her husband to breakfast. Walter Lee, desperate to leave his job as a chauffeur and join the “successful” members of his society, thinks and talks of nothing except the imminent arrival of his father’s life-insurance check – and the opportunity it provides him to go into business as partner in a liquor store. Ruth reminds him that his mother is absolutely set against the selling of liquor, but Walter tries to get his wife to “sell” Mama on the idea. The more he persists, the more Ruth retreats into her morning chores. Frustrated and angry, he tells her a man needs for a woman to back him up and scathingly remarks on how rarely women seem to care about their husband’s dreams – Man Say. Travis presents another problem: he needs fifty cents for school. Ruth tells him bluntly that she doesn’t have the money, but then, softening as he heads for the door in disappointment, she succeeds in conveying to him much more than fifty cents of motherly love – Whose Little Angry Man. On the way to work, Walter Lee encounters other members of his community likewise scurrying frantically to get where they are going-which, in his eyes, is nowhere. Later, driving his employer about the city, Walter grows increasingly incensed at his position in life – and at last bolts from the car to act on his liquor-store deal – Runnin’ To Meet The Man. Mama comes home from her job as a domestic. Clearly, her enormous warmth and strength have given the family solid, if not always “modern,” values and roots. It is her dream to get out of the cramped tenement quarters and into a house of their own – a dream she confides to her small, struggling potted plant – A Whole Lotta Sunlight. At a local bar, Walter Lee celebrates the deal for the liquor store with Bobo Jones, one of his new partners-to-be, and Bobo’s girlfriend. The third partner in the deal, Willie Harris, arrives, and prematurely – in the absence of the money – the deal is sealed. Beneatha Younger, a rebellious young college student seriously intent on becoming a doctor and just as ardent about the kinds of values she wants for the world, is also serious about Asagai, an African exchange student. For her, he symbolizes the intriguing continent from which her people came. At first teasingly, then tenderly, Asagai explains the meaning of the nickname he has given her as she stands enraptured by the images he creates of his country – Alaiyo. Walter Lee, inebriated, arrives home with the partnership papers signed and notarized to find Beneatha, awaiting Asagai, engaged in an exhilarating if largely hypothetical “African” dance. Learning that the check has come, he joins his sister in a moment of wild abandon in which he sees himself as a tribal chieftain, supreme in his own land and time, leading warriors in a victory dance. When Beneatha leaves with Asagai, Ruth again tries to caution Walter that Mama might not see things his way. In bitter anger, Walter flings her from him, then heads for the streets. Ruth bars his way and recalls the closeness they once shared, asking what has become of their lives – Sweet Time. Their reconciliation is interrupted by Mama, who announces that she has bought a house in Clybourne Park, a white neighborhood. When she turns to Walter Lee for his approval, he replies with bitter cynicism that she is so smart, so right and so righteous that she has done him “right out of my dreams tonight” and storms from the house – You Done Right. Act II Walter has not been heard from for three days. Mama, Ruth and Travis join their church congregation in a mighty gospel song – He Come Down This Morning. Mama goes to search for her son and finds him in a bar. She tells him she has been wrong – that she “has been doing to you like the rest of the world.” She places an envelope of money before him, explaining that she had only put a small down-payment on the house, and asks him to put three thousand in the bank for Beneatha’s medical schooling – the rest is Walter’s to do with as he sees fit. As she leaves, he stands, moved by the depth of her love, then clutches the money with exhilaration – It’s A Deal. Although the Youngers, as a family, generally look forward to the new move, Travis is not so sure. Alone, he takes a last, fond look at the old neighborhood – Sidewalk Tree. Walter returns home and, in a private moment with his son, tells Travis of his dreams for them both – It’s A Deal – Coda. While packing to move to the new home, Walter Lee and Ruth seem to regain something of the “Sweet Time” they once had. In a moment of high hilarity, they and Beneatha are interrupted by Mr. Karl Lindner, a white representative from the Clybourne Park “Improvement Association,” who offers to buy the house back. When Mama returns, Walter, Ruth and Beneatha announce that she had a visitor and, assuming roles as members of the hypothetical “Welcoming Committee,” assure her how enlightened and understanding “we in Clybourne Park” have become about the Black-White relationship – Not Anymore. In a spirit of gaiety, the Youngers, drawn together, resume packing. Shock follows, however, with the arrival of Bobo, bearing the news that Willie, the senior member of the partnership, has run off with the money. In the face of catastrophe, Walter tears from the house, then returns to inform the family that he has called Mr. Lindner to accept the Association’s offer to buy back their house. He’s “gonna give him a show,” tell him what he wants to hear, tell him anything – just to get the family’s money back. He shouts that this is the way the world is – this is America, where everything has a price. “You people want that neighborhood the way you want it? Then pay for it!” – It’s A Deal (Reprise). As Walter retreats, Beneatha declares him “not a man . . . and no brother of mine!” But Mama, understanding his anguish, demands that her daughter “measure him right.” “Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through to get to wherever he is” – Measure The Valleys. Lindner arrives, and Walter Lee, in front of his family and with his father’s memory to spur him on, rises to the occasion and says his family has decided to move into the new house. After Lindner leaves, the moving men and neighbors start moving the Youngers. Whatever they must face in their new home, one thing is certain: who they are and what they stand for is intact. As the others depart, Mama stands alone for one last look at the apartment that has held so many years of her life – Finale.

Credits

(in order of appearance) People of the Southside: Chuck Thorpes, Eugene Little, Karen Burke, Zelda Pulliam, Elaine Beener, Renee Rose, Paul Carrington, Marenda Perry, Gloria Turner, Don Jay, Glenn Brooks, Marilyn Hamilton Pusher: Al Perryman Victim: Loretta Abbott Ruth Younger: Ernestine Jackson Travis Younger: Ralph Carter Mrs. Johnson: Helen Martin Walter Lee Younger: Joe Morton Beneatha Younger: Deborah Allen Mama Lena Younger: Virginia Capers Bar Girl: Elaine Beener Bobo Jones: Ted Ross Willie Harris: Walter P. Brown Joseph Asagai: Robert Jackson African Drummer: Chief Bey Pastor: Herb Downer Pastor’s Wife: Marenda Perry Karl Lindner: Richard Sanders