Scan barcode
A review by ejreadswords
The Sign In Sidney Brustein's Window by Lorraine Hansberry
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
“Hope is something most men, even thinking men, cling to long after they know better.”
Thank you to my dear friend “Sidney Jenkins” for gifting two of Lorraine Hansberry’s plays to me — specifically her two most acclaimed and sadly the only staged plays during her lifetime, because she died young at only 34 years old from pancreatic cancer. There’s something about that fact that makes this play all the more tragic; however, let me say, it does end in a hopeful beat, which I’m grateful for, but my lord… the costs and devastations.
This play? Absolutely wonderful. The dialogue is scrumptious, and let me tell you, did it really hook me in, especially in Acts II and III; those two acts have these incredible, vicious bouts of dialogue, and the CHARACTERS… aren’t they so fleshed out and so vivid. I couldn’t help but reread passages and monologues because I just wanted to say the words to myself. I’m grateful that Sidney gifted this to me now, because Sidney (the character) has a few monologues that I’d like to add to my arsenal potentially.
I chose Hamlet’s Act II, Scene II monologue to study for the beginning of this semester, and the image of Sidney holding his bottle of pills like Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull cracked me up, but was such a provocative, stimulating image for me.
Reading about reception to The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window when it first premiered in the 1960s, I can’t say I’m incredibly surprised to learn that reviews were mixed; perhaps the content of the show was too close to home, too ‘fresh’ for the folks of the time. The New York Times wrote about the 2023 revival (that I wanted to see back when it was both Off- and On-Broadway) and referenced its theme as “the Sin of liberal inertia” — and that is a much more poetic way of describing how I felt about the story, and why I loved it so much.
“Yes… weep now, darling, weep. Let us both weep. That is the first thing: to let ourselves feel again… Then, tomorrow, we shall make something strong of this sorrow…”
This is a play about Jewish characters written by a Black woman; however, I think all races and creeds should relate to the Jewish idea that we just live with the knowledge, we live with the burden, we live with the hardships and brutalities we can’t change. I think this is why we still read Russian Drama and literature — we must suffer, and we must endure.
“So there it is, the trouble with looking at ourselves honestly, Sidney, is that we come up with the truth. And baby, the truth is a bitch!”
There’s so much the characters want to do; big ideas, big characters, big morals. We get high and mighty and we talk a big game, say that we know much more than the establishment or the squares. But when push comes to shove, do we do anything? Do we do enough? Will we ever do enough? Morals take you so far; conviction takes you so far; what do we need to take to make the pain go down easier? Pills? Drugs? Art? Sex? Will anything ever be enough?
What a work. Loved Sidney, Iris, Mavis, and oh poor Gloria; a character who makes so much of an impression and invisibly controls the plot despite only being in one scene of this (relatively) long play. A great magic trick.
Thank you to my dear friend “Sidney Jenkins” for gifting two of Lorraine Hansberry’s plays to me — specifically her two most acclaimed and sadly the only staged plays during her lifetime, because she died young at only 34 years old from pancreatic cancer. There’s something about that fact that makes this play all the more tragic; however, let me say, it does end in a hopeful beat, which I’m grateful for, but my lord… the costs and devastations.
This play? Absolutely wonderful. The dialogue is scrumptious, and let me tell you, did it really hook me in, especially in Acts II and III; those two acts have these incredible, vicious bouts of dialogue, and the CHARACTERS… aren’t they so fleshed out and so vivid. I couldn’t help but reread passages and monologues because I just wanted to say the words to myself. I’m grateful that Sidney gifted this to me now, because Sidney (the character) has a few monologues that I’d like to add to my arsenal potentially.
I chose Hamlet’s Act II, Scene II monologue to study for the beginning of this semester, and the image of Sidney holding his bottle of pills like Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull cracked me up, but was such a provocative, stimulating image for me.
Reading about reception to The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window when it first premiered in the 1960s, I can’t say I’m incredibly surprised to learn that reviews were mixed; perhaps the content of the show was too close to home, too ‘fresh’ for the folks of the time. The New York Times wrote about the 2023 revival (that I wanted to see back when it was both Off- and On-Broadway) and referenced its theme as “the Sin of liberal inertia” — and that is a much more poetic way of describing how I felt about the story, and why I loved it so much.
“Yes… weep now, darling, weep. Let us both weep. That is the first thing: to let ourselves feel again… Then, tomorrow, we shall make something strong of this sorrow…”
This is a play about Jewish characters written by a Black woman; however, I think all races and creeds should relate to the Jewish idea that we just live with the knowledge, we live with the burden, we live with the hardships and brutalities we can’t change. I think this is why we still read Russian Drama and literature — we must suffer, and we must endure.
“So there it is, the trouble with looking at ourselves honestly, Sidney, is that we come up with the truth. And baby, the truth is a bitch!”
There’s so much the characters want to do; big ideas, big characters, big morals. We get high and mighty and we talk a big game, say that we know much more than the establishment or the squares. But when push comes to shove, do we do anything? Do we do enough? Will we ever do enough? Morals take you so far; conviction takes you so far; what do we need to take to make the pain go down easier? Pills? Drugs? Art? Sex? Will anything ever be enough?
What a work. Loved Sidney, Iris, Mavis, and oh poor Gloria; a character who makes so much of an impression and invisibly controls the plot despite only being in one scene of this (relatively) long play. A great magic trick.