Les Blancs Read online

  This “fable” was originally conceived for television, then reconceptualized for the stage. As of this writing, I have just witnessed the first staged reading of What Use Are Flowers? in which the directorial periods and commas were inserted by Harold Scott, who directed the award-winning twenty-fifth anniversary production of A Raisin in the Sun and the 1988 and ’89 productions of Les Blancs for Washington’s Arena Stage and Boston’s Huntington Theatre, respectively. Shortly (also in 1994), a full-fledged production of What Use Are Flowers? will be presented.

  Viewing it, as it begins to emerge on stage for the first time, one is struck again by Hansberry’s creative powers: the quality and force of her language and the playwright’s intuitive grasp of what makes for heightened dramatic action.

  One is also reminded of the timeliness of this artist’s vision. In the interaction between the hermit—who, in fact, is the world’s last teacher—and children to whom he must impart sensibilities of beauty and truth, there is a particular poignancy for our time, when the world’s children are not being served well by their elders and the world teeters precariously as a result. In this play, the artist as humanist was never more strikingly revealed.

  The Drinking Gourd, originally commissioned for television to celebrate the centennial year of the American Civil War, has not yet been produced on film or stage. The reason, I think, is simple. The subject matter is American slavery; the nation has not yet come to terms with the terrible system of human bondage that has left us with so weighty a legacy still to be resolved.

  A journal entry from Hansberry on this subject is uncompromising:

  Some scholars have estimated that in the three centuries that the European slave trade flourished, the African continent lost one hundred million of its people. No one, to my knowledge, has ever paid reparations to the descendants of black men; indeed, they have not yet really acknowledged the fact of the crime against humanity which was the conquest of Africa.

  But then—history has not yet been concluded … has it?

  The record of whites in South Africa goes almost as far back as that of the presence of black and white peoples on American shores; hence the magnitude of the announcement of reconciliation from across the seas—and the promise.

  In this soon-to-be thirtieth anniversary of Hansberry’s death, history has moved from the independence of Ghana in 1957 and that of Kenya in 1963 (Jomo Kenyatta was on Hansberry’s mind in the writing of Les Blancs), to the rise of the new republic of South Africa as a phoenix from ashes in 1994, a testament not merely to human struggle but to the human will to triumph.

  Hansberry once said in an inteview that her goal as a dramatist was to “reach a little closer to people, to see if we can share some illumination about each other.”

  It will be interesting to keep Les Blancs within our purview for another thirty years, an ultimate milepost that will take us well into a new century and millennium to measure how far we and the world have come in sharing illuminations. Perhaps within this time frame, many more periods and commas will have been placed to shape the kind of world that Lorraine Hansberry in her brief life emphasized again and again was possible.

  —JEWELL HANDY GRESHAM NEMIROFF

  May 1994

  * Women who preceded Hansberry: 1941, Lillian Hellman, Watch on the Rhine; 1950, Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding; 1956, Francis Goodrich (with Albert Hackett), The Diary of Anne Frank; 1958, Ketti Frings, Look Homeward Angel.

  * In 1994, David Levering-Lewis’s W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race won the Pulitzer Prize. Of few other African American figures—with the exception of Frederick Douglass in the nineteenth century and perhaps, in his short life, Martin Luther King, Jr., in the twentieth—would it be possible to entitle the record of one man’s life also a biography of his people.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My first tribute here is to Lorraine Hansberry, the young African American woman playwright to whom the American theater and African American theater owe so much. It is impossible to read her words in work after work—or see her plays on stage or film—and not feel astonished anew at the depth of the perception and powers of expression of this artist.

  My second tribute is to Robert Nemiroff for the dedication and integrity of his work on behalf of the playwright and lovers of art and beauty everywhere. Now, in reviewing his acknowledgments in To Be Young, Gifted and Black (1969), his seminal work portraying Hansberry in her own words, I am struck by how much theater and personal history is incorporated in his prefatory pages as he listed the extraordinary numbers of people (from the beginning, following the loss of the playwright) who have contributed to the perpetuation of the Hansberry legacy.

  Two of the persons who, like Bob, are no longer with us, I should like to again recall: his assistant Charlotte Zaltzberg, who worked with him unstintingly in mutual love for a project in which both joy and satisfaction could be derived from the very exposure to so rich a lore of human creativity. The second person, the late Howard Hausman, whom Bob described as “the first agent I ever met who proved not a ‘necessary evil,’ but a true friend of art.” Howie and his wife, Marie, became equally my friends. I will be forever grateful for Howie’s deep appreciation of Hansberry’s genius and Bob’s commitment, and his never-failing encouragement of my work.

  Others to whom I am indebted who were present at that time—or entered the picture shortly thereafter—are Seymour Baldash, Bob’s friend and accountant (and mine); Alan Bomser, our lawyer and friend; and Samuel Liff, faithful agent and friend. All three have helped to sustain me and assisted me in carrying Bob’s work forward.

  Two patrons who believed in my husband provided invaluable assistance. Without them, the difficulties of getting Hansberry’s work before the public would have been infinitely harder. They are Estelle Frank, a longtime friend, and Sol Medoff (and his wife, Faye), committed human beings who simply believed in Hansberry and Bob and acted on the strength of the belief.

  Other special persons to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude include the husband and wife team Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, perhaps the most legendary of African American artists of stage, screen, and television of our times. Both Davis and Dee are also writers (Ruby Dee is a lyrical poet; Ossie Davis, an essayist and playwright). From the time of Lorraine’s death, they responded whenever Bob called (which was often) and have continued to do so for me: responded with love, and patience, and instant dedication to whatever project from our household is underway. Their support of me on Bob’s death was, as their lives are, deeply affirming.

  Margaret B. Wilkerson, Hansberry’s biographer, has brought to her work in researching Hansberry’s life a thorough approach and respect for the process, and humility in having the responsibility for presentation and treatment of the artist as a private person and creator. Highly capable and creative, Wilkerson, through her knowledge of Hansberry, of her times, of the African American experience, and of the theater, helps immeasurably to fill the void of Bob’s loss.

  Chiz Schultz, one of the original producers of To Be Young, Gifted and Black and sensitive stage, film, and TV producer, has continued to sustain and support my work. A man of total integrity, he too enriches the arts by his professionalism and his private commitment.

  I am grateful to Max Eisen, Bob’s press agent, who has never failed to answer any call from me for advice or help. And my friends Lovette Harper and Sophie and Joe LaRusso for fidelity.

  And Edith Gordon, Bob’s—and my—more than friend and mentor, who spoiled him shamelessly because she loved him.

  Finally my family: I am grateful to the Nemiroffs who closed ranks around me on my husband’s death to uplift and sustain me. My special thanks to Mili and Leo; David and Helene; David Lyons and Sandra Nemiroff Lyons, and Matthew Lyons.

  My sister, Hattie Handy Manning, who has always promptly undertaken to support whatever I have attempted to do through the years; my brother, Albert Handy, his wife, Cathy and children Alicia, Cathy, Albert, and Lizzie; and my ne
phew Paul Nunn and his wife, Vanessa, for their care. Thanks also to Marty Nunn.

  Multifold gratitude to our daughter, Joi Gresham, creative in her own right and imbued with a sense of purpose and direction of which Bob was very proud. Thanks also to my son-in-law, Timothy Conant, and joyous appreciation to my grandchildren Joshua Malik Gresham-Conner and Mariah Jewell Gresham-Conant for existing.

  Lastly, my deep gratitude to my husband’s closest friends, who have helped to fill the void in my life: Dr. Burton D’Lugoff, who loved Lorraine Hansberry and Robert Nemiroff and fought vainly in the final illness of each to wrest each back to this side of life. Thanks also to his wife, Marian, who supported him and us.

  And to Ann and Ernie Lieberman, who are always by my side with laughter, and nostalgia, warm memories, and a zest for life that is contagious and an ongoing tribute to Bob, whom they loved, and to me, whom they welcomed into so beautiful and charmed a circle.

  —JEWELL HANDY GRESHAM NEMIROFF

  Croton-on-Hudson, New York

  May 1994

  INTRODUCTION

  The Black Arts movement of the 1960s seemed to burst on the American theatrical scene with no warning. The plays of LeRoi Jones (now Amiri Baraka), Ed Bullins, and others appeared, it seemed, from nowhere, called forth from hidden reserves of anger deep within the black community. Few had recognized the strains of militance in the earlier voice of Lorraine Hansberry. Only in hindsight do we now realize that Hansberry heralded the new movement and, in fact, became one of its major literary catalysts. The commercial success and popularity of her first play masked her radical politics and seemed to align her with “integrationism” rather than the muscular voice of Malcolm X. Suppression of other works robbed the public of her insights and her warnings of the cataclysmic civic revolts to come. However, writings that emerged after her death confirmed the vigor of her challenge to the status quo. Only now, in retrospect, do we begin to comprehend her significance as an American, a black, and a woman writer.

  She was born in 1930 and died of cancer in 1965. Yet during her scant thirty-four years of life, she made an indelible mark on American theater. She was the first black playwright and the youngest of any color to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for the Best Play of the Year, earning it for her first play, A Raisin in the Sun. The drama, which opened on Broadway in 1959, was a landmark success and was subsequently translated into over thirty languages on all continents, including the language of the former East Germany’s Sorbische minority, and produced in such diverse countries as the former Czechoslovakia, England, France, Kenya, the former Soviet Union, Mongolia, and Japan. The play became a popular film in 1961, a Tony Award-winning musical in 1973, and a highly successful television drama produced on American Playhouse in 1989, starring Danny Glover and Esther Rolle.

  Her brief life yielded five plays (one of which was completed by her former husband and literary executor, the late Robert Nemiroff), and more than sixty magazine and newspaper articles, plays, poems, and speeches. She also wrote the text for The Movement, a photographic essay on the Civil Rights Movement. To Be Young, Gifted and Black, based on her life, toured the country after her death, playing to thousands on campuses and in communities, and adding a new and vital phrase to the American idiom. An activist artist, she spoke at Civil Rights rallies, writers’ conferences, and confronted then-U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy in a controversial meeting with black leaders about the role of the FBI in the Deep South. Her significance, however, does not rest solely on these activities nor even on her record of productivity. Hansberry is important because of her incisive, articulate, and sensitive exposure of the dynamic, troubled American culture. That she, a black artist, could tell painful truths to a society unaccustomed to rigorous self-criticism and still receive its praise is testimony to her artistry.

  Lorraine Hansberry was born into material comfort on the South Side of Chicago, and grew up as part of the middle class. But while she was privy to opportunities denied others, she was subject to the same dangers and discrimination that plagued other blacks in segregated Chicago. In order for her family to purchase a home in a previously all-white neighborhood, her father had to wage a legal battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. When the family finally moved in, the home was attacked by a racist mob—a brick hurled through the window narrowly missed the eight-year-old Lorraine. Earlier she had lived in a ghetto, the product of rigid housing segregation that kept all blacks, regardless of income, confined to the same neighborhood. She went to public school and made friends with other black children whose families were not as well off as hers, and never forgot the lessons she learned from them. There are no easy generalizations about her early life, except those intended to justify simplistic views. The comfort to which she was born is only relative when one looks at the whole of American life; it did not isolate her from the struggles and the anger of poor people.

  Although her plays are not wholly autobiographical, the origins of their themes can be found in several important facts from her childhood and youth. According to Hansberry, the truth of her life and essence begins in the Chicago ghetto where she was born:

  I think you could find the tempo of my people on their back porches. The honesty of their living is there in the shabbiness. Scrubbed porches that sag and look their danger. Dirty gray wood steps. And always a line of white and pink clothes scrubbed so well, waving in the dirty wind of city.

  My people are poor. And they are tired. And they are determined to live.

  Our Southside is a place apart: each piece of our living is a protest.1

  From her parents she learned to have pride in the family and never to betray the race. But she also learned that freedom and equality for her people were not likely to come through the American democratic way. She had seen her father spend a small fortune fighting the restrictive covenants of Chicago, then die a permanently embittered exile in a foreign country, disillusioned by the intransigence of racism. She had little desire for the materialism characteristic of her class since her kindergarten days when she was beaten up by classmates: her mother had dressed her in white fur—in the middle of the Depression. She came to respect the pugnacity of her peers, children from the ghetto who were not afraid to fight and to defend themselves. From these and other early experiences, she developed a deep empathy for the desires and frustrations of her people, and a respect for their beauty and vigor.

  In 1948, she attended the University of Wisconsin, where she joined and led the Young Progressives of America and later the Labor Youth League, politically left organizations that offered a forum for her progressive views. But after two years, she left the University to find an education of a different kind. Moving to New York City, she took a job as a journalist on the progressive Negro paper Freedom, whose editorial board was chaired by Paul Robeson. Here she began to refine her writing skills and to clarify her political views. She came to know some of the greatest black literary and activist figures of her time, among them W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Robeson.

  They became the artistic and philosophical reference points for her later works. She would credit the Freedom editor, Louis Burnham, with teaching her: “That all racism was rotten, white or black, that everything is political; that people tend to be indescribably beautiful and uproariously funny. He also taught me that they have enemies who are grotesque and that freedom lies in the recognition of all of that and other things.”2 It was at this point in her life that she consciously decided to be a writer.

  As a black writer, Hansberry was caught in a paradox of expectations. She was expected to write about that which she “knew best,” the black experience, and yet that expression was doomed to be called parochial and narrow. Hansberry, however, challenged these facile categories and forced a redefinition of the term “universality,” one which would include the dissonant voice of an oppressed American minority. As a young college student, she had wandered into a rehearsal of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock. Hearing in
the wails and moans of the Irish characters a universal cry of human misery, she determined to capture that sound in the idiom of her own people—so that it could be heard by all. “One of the most sound ideas in dramatic writing,” she would later conclude, “is that in order to create the universal, you must pay very great attention to the specific. Universality, I think, emerges from truthful identity of what is.… In other words, I think people, to the extent we accept them and believe them as who they’re supposed to be, to that extent they can become everybody.”3 Such a choice by a black writer posed an unusual challenge to the literary establishment and a divided society ill-prepared to comprehend its meaning.

  “All art is ultimately social: that which agitates and that which prepares the mind for slumber,” Hansberry argued, attacking another basic tenet held by traditional critics. One of the most fundamental illusions of her time and culture, she believed, is the idea that art is not and should not make a social statement. The belief in “l’art pour l’art” permeates literary and theatrical criticism, denying the integral relationship between society and art. “The writer is deceived who thinks he has some other choice. The question is not whether one will make a social statement in one’s work—but only what the statement will say, for if it says anything at all, it will be social.”4

  It would have been impossible for a person of her background and sensitivity to divorce herself from the momentous social and political events of the 1950s and 1960s. This period witnessed the beginning of a Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet superpowers, a rising demand by blacks for civil rights at home, and a growing intransigence by colonized peoples throughout the world. Isolation is the enemy of black writers, Hansberry believed; they are obligated to participate in the intellectual and social affairs of humankind everywhere.