Last week, the Lafayette Civic Theater opened its three-week presentation of the Lorraine Hansberry classic "A Raisin in the Sun." I've thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the theater. Hopefully, I will experiment and branch more with this medium. I play the role of George Murchison, the son of a rich black family. He desires to have Beneatha but only in a more traditional feminine role.
Each character carries a distinct ideological belief. It is the clashing of these ideologies, these beliefs which makes this play dynamic and timeless--because they still are relevant in African-American and American life.
I was thinking about my brief interactions with Walter Lee Younger. In Scene II, I take out his sister to a dance, leave the house, and insult him by calling him "Prometheus." Why Prometheus, I thought?
So I decided to write a poem to Walter, not out of spite, but of sympathy.
to walter
good night prometheus...
you carry the fire of my black brothers and sisters
but cannot sustain it within....
so many dreams to behold
within your grasp
yet they are always taken away...
chained the city has you.
cornered.
the city has your eyes trapped in the grey sky
the rain the snow
taunts you, tapping your shoulders
for your raisin to sleep...
good night prometheus....
