Vital Viewing (What Happens to a Dream Deferred Edition)

 

Now, just what the hell is that monstrosity? An early Mac? Maybe some postwar PC that ran on Windows 0000000.1? Could it be a protype laptop that a succession of crushed thighs sent back to the drawing board? No, it's actually a 1935 IBM Model 01, one of the first electric typewriters.

Here it is from another angle. Not to be confused with an iPad.

Of course, it's not the writing machine but the writer writing on the writing machine that matters, in this case playwright Lorraine Hansberry, born on this day in 1930 (she died in 1965.) In the following clip, Hansberry expounds on what kind of subject matter makes for the best plays:

Seemingly reductive but ultimately expansive, I dare say.

Except why dare say it when I can show it? Not the original 1959 Broadway production, which except for a few photos is lost forever, but the next best thing, the 1961 film version. Watch and listen as Sidney Poitier, Diana Sands, and Cleveland native Ruby Dee, all original cast members of that Broadway production, recite Hansberry's disquieting dialogue:

Very powerful scene, but if the always compelling Poitier is Lorraine Hansberry's idea of a "most ordinary human being", then where does that leave me?

I'm just below that big yellow dude, right scoop, center row, third from the left.