In 1959, Lorraine Hansberry made history as the first African-American woman playwright to have a play show on Broadway. Written when she was 26, that play was A Raisin in the Sun.

Gayle Samuels and Angela Mahlatjie in STC’s A Raisin in the Sun. Photo © Joseph Mayers

Set in 1950s Chicago, it shows a Black American family struggling to pursue their dreams with dignity at a time when hope and despair are dizzyingly in flux, and the old and new ways battle for a stake in the future as a new, uncertain paradigm emerges. Centring the relationships primarily within a family of three generations, grappling with ideas of feminism, capitalism, racial identity and a new, insidious kind of ‘polite’ racism in a pre-Civil Rights America, this social realist drama is now an iconic work of American theatre, timeless and revered.

It was only last night, though, that A Raisin in the Sun was performed in a mainstage Australian production.

In the Wharf 1 Theatre, it is brought to life by Sydney Theatre Company under the calmly assured hand of director Wesley Enoch, and a talented, majority Black cast. The production is...