By George Basler
The Light in Sidney Brustein’s Window is a play with a lot on its mind. It raises questions about American progressivism, race, political corruption and bohemian lifestyle, to name a few of its topics.
“It’s definitely ambitious,” said Joseph Hoffmann, who is playing the title character in a production of the play opening tonight (Friday, Oct. 4) at the Ti-Ahwaga Community Playhouse in Owego for a three-weekend run.
The play’s ambition is what attracted him, Hoffmann added. He called the play “timeless.”
The 1964 play is the second staged play by Lorraine Hansberry, who scored a major success a few years earlier with A Raisin in the Sun. While Raisin focused on racism faced by a Black family, Sidney Brustein focuses on the political and cultural disputes of the early 1960s.
The play’s main character is a Jewish intellectual and struggling artist with a troubled marriage. Hansberry presents well-rounded characters while showing the social upheaval of the time, Hoffmann said. The relationship between Sidney and his wife, Iris, provides “a strong emotional spine” for the action, he emphasized.
Nina Varano will play Iris. Varano was in SRO Underground’s Reefer Madness during the summer and The Elephant Man earlier this year at Ti-Ahwaga. Hoffmann has been in numerous regional productions over the years, including How I Learned to Drive and Coyote on a Fence at KNOW Theatre.
“It’s nice to get a role that requires some intellectual digging,” Hoffmann said about playing Sidney. Hansberry’s play is very complex, he noted, crediting Laurie Brearley’s work as a dramaturg with helping the cast grasp this complexity.
Hansberry’s promising career as a playwright was cut short by her early death from pancreatic cancer. Sidney Brustein had a modest initial run on Broadway. A 2023 Broadway revival, however, brought strong reviews and new attention to the play. Variety called it “a mind-blowing restoration of an overlooked battleship,” adding it’s “thrilling and unwieldy in a way that too few plays are given sufficient berth to be on Broadway.”
The New York Times called it “as a brilliant and pugnacious a punch against liberal inertia as any thrown in real life.”
Other actors in the Ti-Ahwaga production are Jason E. Walsh, Stan Zawatsky, Deirdre Nolis, Anna Tagliaferro, Addison Turner and Clarie Gratto. Parker Howland is listed as producer and Nathan Butler as director.
Viewer discretion is advised. The production contains sexual themes and derogatory language and content about racism, antisemitism, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, substance abuse and suicide.
IF YOU GO: Ti-Ahwaga Community Players will present Lorraine Hansberry’s The Light in Sidney Brustein’s Window Oct. 4-Oct. 20 at the Ti-Ahwaga Community Playhouse, 42 Delphine St., Owego. Friday and Saturday performances are at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday performances are at 2 p.m. Tickets at $25 are available at www.tiahwaga.com or by calling 607-687-2130.
