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Play review: 'A Raisin in the Sun' in Kingston
By Marcus Kalipolites - Times Herald Record (February 19, 2008)
kINGSTON — In Lorraine Hansberry's Tony Award-winning play "A Raisin in the Sun," Momma's words, "Freedom used to be life, now money is life," are not only prophetic, but also crystallize the plight of a black family living in Chicago a half-century ago.
Produced by Passing the Torch Through the Arts, the current presentation of "Raisin" celebrates both Black History Month and the first Broadway play written by a black woman. It is a play about sacrifice, pride and love, and in Sunday afternoon's presentation at the ASK Arts Center, the ensemble of eight players effectively captured both the anguish and the triumph of a family.
Momma is the matriarch of three generations living in a cramped apartment of "cracking walls and crawling cockroaches" as described by her daughter-in-law. It is thus that Momma, always dreaming of moving up in the world, wants money from her dead husband's insurance to buy a new home for the Younger family.
However, son Walter, as played by Michael Monasterial, has his own dreams. Frustrated by a dead-end future, the chauffeur-by-trade wants to use Momma's money to establish a liquor store; ergo, conflict and crises.
And through it all, the veteran actor maintains a commanding presence as his character leans on Momma for money, complains bitterly about the same old breakfast, justifies his three-day escape from work, remorsefully consoles his wife with romance, boastfully promises his son a better tomorrow and effectively unhinges a plot to wreck the family's hopes — all accomplished with resourceful acting.
For her part, Jody Satriani serves Momma with uncompromising moral conviction as she angrily strikes and shortly after prevails upon nonbelieving daughter Beneatha to repeat, "This is my mother's house and there is God."
In playing the scholarly and self-assured Beneatha, Soyal Smalls sparkles at the thought of becoming a medical doctor, struggles with the identity of being an educated black woman and finally looks forward to practicing in Africa.
Another woman of many moods is Ruth, wife of Walter and played by Ovella Snow, who wearies at their financial plight as she fidgets lunch money out of a glass jar for son Travis on the one hand and also rejoices ecstatically at the prospect of moving into a new home.
The home that Momma contracted for, however, comes with a problem in the person of Lidner, who offers Momma a bonus to forgo moving into a white neighborhood. As Lidner, Brett Owen effectively captures the queasiness of his position by countering reason and threat with nonstop hand motions and nervous demeanor.
Rounding out the cast are Johnny Lancaster as Walter's respectful son, Travis, and Alioune Sall as the congenial Ahsagai, Beneatha's admirer who entices her to join him in Africa. And finally, besides fleshing out a very thoughtful play with discrimination, director Candi Sterling serves also in the cameo role of busybody Mrs. Johnson.
Community Theatre Makes a Connection
Posted by angchronicles on May 13, 2008
From book to stage and screen that’s what has been capturing me in the artful world of literature. When “Color Purple” hit Broadway I was determined to see the show, before it ended like a “Raisin in the Sun” and I had to revel in other people’s reviews. During the last week of “the purple” production, I was fascinated and captivated. Brilliant scenery, excellent vocals and dazzling dances. I loved it! Of course, without the original ending when Shugs makes amends with her father — earthly and heavenly the spiritual context of the color purple was lost.
Although I missed Lorraine Hansberry’s original 1958 production of “A Raisin in the Sun” and the Broadway show featuring Phylisha Rashad, I did read the book in high school and watch PBS adaption of the play starring Danny Glover and the 1961film starring Sidney Poitier. However, the most recent theater debut, produced by Passing the Torch Through the Arts and performed at Dutchess Community College in celebration of Black History Month, added depth and meaning to Hansberry’s Tony-award winning play that I had not garnered from my high school reading or the film adaption.
Langston Hughes’ poem “A Dream Deferred” inspired Hansberry to write “A Raisin in the Sun.”
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Hansberry also wrote this play, then, so white America could see blacks in other roles besides housekeepers and minstrels. After connecting the play to the poem, now, as a black woman, mother, parent, wife, and daughter I see people of all races, creeds and colors, who have experienced their dreams dry up in the sun as they make a decision to run or despite the sagging load carry on.
 
From the Kingston Freeman
By Bonnie
Langston
Michael Monasterial, a Kingston man who says theater saved his life, is on a mission.
His mission
is, at least figuratively, to help save the lives of at-risk youths through the arts.
"If I can get them young
enough...," Monasterial said. "I'd like to show them there is a higher path."
He hopes two one-act
plays, "Recidivism," which he wrote, and "When the Chickens Came Home to Roost," by Laurence Holder, will
help lead the way. Both debut Wednesday, the first in a string of evening performances at The Arts Society of Kingston, 97
Broadway, in the city's Rondout district.
Town of Ulster resident Bruce Grund is co-producer and director of
both works, and Monasterial will play lead roles in each. The casts are multi-racial, range in age from 17 to 50 and incorporate
veterans and novice actors, most of them local.
The first play portrays the struggles of a father and son who meet
in a holding cell in a county jail, and the second frames the historic confrontation between Malcolm X and Elijah Mohammed.
Both plays, Monasterial said, celebrate positive action and provide a message of hope.
Their presentation, he said,
is a "coming out party" for a fledgling project under the umbrella of Passing the Torch, Through the Arts, a new
multi-ethnic theater company dedicated to education and social change. Monasterial, the artistic director, envisions after-school
theater programs that take place in two-month cycles in which young people take part in every element of presentation - writing,
acting, producing, creating scenery and more. In so doing, he said, participants will learn cooperation, leadership and other
life skills that transfer well to the world of work.
The 44-year-old Bronx-born Monasterial, a carpenter and contractor,
said he is an example of how that concept operates. As a youth, his lifestyle wasn't working well. He hung out with "bad
kids" in Yonkers where his family moved when he was 13. He recalls living in a "crazy" environment as a black
kid in a white neighborhood where his "personal trauma" included molestation, being chased by mobs, not to mention
exposure to fire-bombings across the street.
It was recognition and encouragement by his music teacher, the only
African-American instructor at Roosevelt High School at the time, that led Monasterial to alter the destructive path he had
been following. She told him he was a "natural" for the ninth grade's rendition of "The Music Man,"
and suggested he try out. He auditioned and he got the lead.
"That was my start in theater," Monasterial
said, "and I loved it."
In fact, at 16, he landed a role Off-Broadway with the New Rochelle Children's
Repertory Company in "The Runaways," at the Lion Theater on 42nd Street on Theater Row in New York City, followed
by performance in "The Me Nobody Knows." Later, while at Westchester County Community College, Monasterial and friends
started the Three Brothers Theater, which played to audiences in a variety of universities.
"Like most theaters,"
Monasterial said, "there wasn't a lot of money in it, but it was a lot of fun. That's where I developed my craft.
I did a lot of writing, a lot of acting, built sets. We did everything."
He wants a similar experience for
area youths who take part in his aptly named program, Passing the Torch, Through the Arts. He said he saw the need for such
a program on his recent return to the area where a decade earlier he had served as student-government president at Ulster
County Community College in Stone Ridge.
"I was surprised by the crime rate within the youth population in
the city of Kingston," he said, including racially motivated crimes. "So many young people are going to jail. That's
what I expect from the Bronx, downtown Yonkers. I was surprised at how bad it was in Kingston."
Monasterial
said he is dedicating his life to making positive changes, not only for at-risk, underprivileged youth, but also for his daughter
Maya, who will turn 6 on Oct. 24.
"I don't want her to go through the same things I went through,"
he said.
When Monasterial, a board member and volunteer at the Arts Society of Kingston, learned of Grund's
plans to present and direct "When the Chickens Came Home to Roost" at the space, he saw a great opportunity.
"He said he had written a play called 'Recitivism.' Could I take a look at it?" Grund said.
He said Monasterial's plan works well with his own agenda: to help break down "cultural apartheid" in Kingston.
The plays presented together, Grund said, in a multi-cultural neighborhood could ease the way.
Like Monasterial,
Grund has seen the theatrical experience heal youth who are struggling, including those in what was once called the Division
for Youth in Highland where he worked mostly in theater during the 1980s and much of the following decade. He recalled the
cast of incarcerated youth in "An Evening with Langston Hughes" and the accolades they received.
"Here
they were, getting applauded for doing something positive for the first time in their lives," Grund said. "It was
amazing."
It gives him hope for Monasterial's project.
"I like Mike's concept, which
is part of the reason we joined forces," he said. "I believe that all art is potentially transforming."
Monasterial has seen that transformation in others as well. "Recitivism" was first performed at the Westchester
County Correctional Facility in Valhalla six years ago where it met with "thundering" applause and standing ovations,
said Monasterial.
"It's not a preachy play," he said. "The events are based on real situations."
Meanwhile, as Monasterial, Grund, additional actors and personnel practice the play and the Holder piece about Malcolm
X, rehearsals also are underway for the February production of "A Raisin in the Sun," meant as a celebration of
African American History Month. Candi Sterling, an Ulster County resident and theater major at SUNY New Paltz, will direct.
The show will play three weekends at the Arts Society of Kingston. Then it will tour the Hudson Valley with performances
scheduled so far at Bailey and Miller middle schools in the Kingston educational system and Dutchess Community College in
Poughkeepsie.
By the spring of next year, Monasterial hopes to tour yet another performance piece, a gospel musical
for which he is writing the book and lyrics. That tour, he hopes will attract youth ministries in churches as well as other
venues.
Meanwhile, he plans to take "Recidivism" to Phoenix House, a substance abuse treatment and prevention
center in Westchester County during the first week of November. Napanoch prison in Ellenville is another possible site for
a future performance, he said.
For now, though, much of Monasterial's focus is on youth. They will have a presence
when "Recidivism" and "When the Chickens Came Home to Roost" kick off Wednesday at Arts Society of Kingston,
he said, thanks to several area businesses that are lending financial support to the effort. They have made attendance possible
for at least 100 youngsters from the Boys and Girls club and 50 youths from the Everette Hodge Center, both in Kingston. Family
of Woodstock received 50 tickets to disperse to young people as well.
Monasterial hopes the upcoming performances
will draw a large and culturally varied adult audience, too, an audience in tune with the goals of his broader program. He
said good turnouts also will increase the likelihood that the arts society will welcome return performances by his company
as well as its teaching component.
A continued presence seems likely anyway if others are in agreement with Richard
Wixom, a fellow society board member. He and Monasterial have worked many weekends renovating the organization's second
floor, reconfiguring the space that has a small stage.
Wixom said Monasterial is a "charismatic" man
and a hard worker who is doing important work not only theatrically but also in community outreach.
"We are
very, very happy to have him as part of the Arts Society," he said, "and we look forward to more productions in
the future."
Monasterial said he is grateful for the society's support, but he also said he hopes someday
his company will have its own space.
"If somebody could donate a barn shell, we could make it a theater. You
can put that down," he told a reporter. "It could be anywhere."
Monasterial applauds sports and
other positive avenues for youth, but he said theater is yet another option, one he is excited about offering to the youth
of Kingston. Through the medium, he said, a young person headed down the wrong path can turn heel and change his or her destiny.
He said, "You can say, 'From now on, for the rest of my life, this is what my path is going to be.'"
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From ROLL Magazine
Breaking
Through the Cultural Apartheid
by Jay Blotcher
Ulster County residents
Bruce Grund, 79 and Michael Monasterial, 44, come from different worlds, but their love of theater and belief in its capacity
for social change links them. After meeting initially at a Tuesday night workshop for playwrights at Art Society of Kingston
on the Rondout, their ongoing discussions resulted in a partnership between their respective production companies, Grund's
Apocalypse Productions and Monasterial's Passing the Torch through Arts.
The new hybrid has already borne fruit:
a pair of socially explosive plays which will play nine times throughout the month of October at The Art Society of Kingston:
When the Chickens Come Home to Roost and Recidivism, both directed by Grund.
When the Chickens Come Home to Roost concerns
the symbiotic and later contentious relationship between civil rights leader Malcolm X and his mentor Elijah Mohammed which
led to X's assassination in 1965. In this Lawrence Holder play, Monasterial plays Malcolm X opposite Stephen M. Jones
as the imperious leader of the American Muslim movement.
Recidivism is a play written by Monasterial. The coldly technical
word, known to correctional officers and social behaviorologists, refers to incarcerated people who upon release, eventually
slip back into crime. In this one-act, a father and son confront the social patterns and personal demons that caused their
troubles. Recidivism stars local actors Keith Bullock, Joel Yimbo Jr., Ricky Cannon, Tom Andriello and Jalon Jones.
The
two plays are linked by many themes concerning African-American life and a legacy of injustice. Yet more simply, both plays
deal with the primal dynamic between a father and his son, whether biological as in Recidivism or spiritual as in Chickens.
Veteran director Grund had a clear impetus for bringing these plays to ASK"I really believe that racism is alive and
well in this country -- and that includes Kingston," Grund said. These plays address the poisonous effects of racism,
but also depict black lives, still an infrequent occurrence in local theater, Grund said.
"The ASK building stands
across from two low-income housing projects," Grund said. "Young and old people of color pass ASK ten times a day
and will not come in." By staging Chickens and Recidivism, Grund not only hopes to change the ASK audience dynamic, but
also to provide inspiration to local youths.
"There is relevance [in Chickens] for today's audience," Grund
said. He points out that Malcolm Little began his life not as an inspirational leader to millions, but as a petty criminal
known as Detroit Red. "He was selling crack, pimping, robbing houses, and he turned himself around."
Bruce
Grund has always believed that theater could change minds. That is why he has mounted shows wherever he can, whether on the
stage of a small hole in the wall, or in the streets. [Most recently, he collaborated on the ImpeachMobile which participated
in the Artists Soap Box Derby in Kingston.] For many years, Grund toiled in downtown New York City among fellow freedom fighters
and unabashed old-school lefties. His early resume includes work with Bread & Puppet, reviewing local theater for underground
papers and later shooting an award-winning documentary about the American involvement in Southeast Asia. Theater was indivisible
from his existence as a political activist; he helped organize a college tour for Judith Malina and Julian Beck's The
Living Theater. The message of the theater pieces was unequivocal: students must protest to end the Vietnam War.
"Many
of the colleges erupted after theydid their performances," he said.
When he left New York in 1985, Grund came to
Ulster County. Employed as a social worker for the county, he again combined his twin passions of agitating for social justice
and creating provocative theater. After adapting poetry by Harlem Renaissance avatar Langston Hughes for the stage, Grund
wrote and produced a play called Crack Alley. He cast former addicts and other youths at risk in the production.
"It
was a transformative experience," Grund said. "Here they were being applauded for doing something that was positive,
instead of ripping off somebody."
Most recently, Grund directed a 2004 production of Howard Zinn's Emma, a stage
dramatization of the life of one of his heroes: the 20th-century social activist Emma Goldman, at Byrdcliffe Theater. Goldman
was a fierce, uncompromising feminist, free speech activist, union organizer, and anarchist. An immigrant to the United States,
Goldman worked to improve ghetto conditions and spoke out against the Great War. For her efforts, Goldman was finally deported
to Russia in 1919. In a 2004 interview, Grund told me that the playwright gave him permission to streamline the epic play.
"He trusted me to go ahead and interpret his work the best I can."
Michael Monasterial was a jock at Yonkers'
Roosevelt High School in the late 70s. He was also class clown. A friend suggested he apply that natural talent to joining
the drama club. Looking back, Monasterial understands the dynamics at the work...
"When you have low esteem, you
want to be someone else," he said, "so acting and drama just fit in with that."
After several high school
productions, Monasterial graduated but kept his love of theater alive through college, resulting in the creation of his own
acting company. Three Brothers Theater was established in 1984, while Monasterial also did daywork as a cameraman at the United
Nations. He wrote several scripts and received local grants to stage them over the next seven years at local high schools
and colleges. Often, the troupe only received stipends to cover gas money.
Monasterial pledged that his work would focus
on upbeat messages. "I wanted plays with social significance," he said. "Themes of independence, self-sufficiency
and pride." Monasterial, who is of mixed race [black, white and Puerto Rican] not only faced family problems at home,
but admits that his life went off the rails at one point. While he declines to provide details, the misstep apparently involved
either gang time or jail time or both, because Recidivism carries the bitter tang of prison talk and depicts the mounting
passions that occur when testosterone behind bars clashes.
"All the material in this play is accurate," he
said, "down to the uniforms, language, lifestyle."
Monasterial wrote Recidivism six years ago and first staged
it for the members of a drug treatment program in the Westchester town of Valhalla. The audience, composed of former inmates,
praised the integrity of the piece, telling the cast and playwright, "This is our story."
While the prevailing
message is that people should take responsibility for their actions, and break self-defeating patterns, Monasterial knows
that preachy theater can be easily dismissed. "[Recidivism] is therapy," he said, "but if it wasn't good
theater, no one would watch it." His theatrical skills were honed at Manhattan's famous HB Studio.
Monasterial
has nurtured his current theater program, Passing the Torch through the Arts, while maintaining his own small construction
company. As he did for Three Brothers, Monasterial mounts shows at schools and auditoriums for at-risk and low-income youth
["people with ambition but an inability to vent their frustrations," he said]. Recent productions have been staged
for members of the Boys & Girls Clubs and young parishioners from local black community churches. Monasterial strives
for his company's fiscally self-sufficiency.
Monasterial will return to ASK next February with a production of Lorraine
Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and then tour regional middle schools. There is talk of filming Recidivism in the old
UlsterCounty Jail.
In an era where schools face shrinking budgets and are forced to jettison their arts programs, Monasterial
sees Passing the Torch as a crucial resource. "There are so many bad choices out there," he said, "so many
dark paths these kids can take."
Bruce Grund waxes optimistic about the potential of the partnership forged by the
two theatrical companies.
| Review from The Woodstock Times October 25, 2007 |
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