Review: Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan Bring ‘Sidney Brustein’ to Broadway
This is an amended review, which first appeared in February when the production ran at BAM before its Broadway transfer.
The sign in Sidney Brustein’s window, in Lorraine Hansberry’s play of the same name, is one which supports a liberal New York politician, Wally O’Hara, who ultimately turns out to be no good. And what the sign stands for—ideals defiled and made redundant—are at the heart of Lorraine Hansberry’s second Broadway play, which premiered in 1964. It followed her smash success—and the play she remains best-known for—A Raisin in the Sun, which the Public Theater mounted a near-perfect revival of last year.
But whereas what the latter said about race remains piercing and universal today, Sidney Brustein, presently revived on Broadway (James Earl Jones Theatre, booking through June 30) after its February/March run at BAM, feels very much of its time, and dustily lost in it too.