The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (1964). Summary and Description

Premiering on October 15, 1964, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window was Lorraine Hansberry’s second and last Broadway play before her death three months later. Although terminally ill with cancer when the play went into rehearsal, she and a private nurse stayed in the nearby Hotel Abby Victoria so that she could attend rehearsals whenever possible.

Hansberry’s strong commitment to the humanist tradition inspired her to produce art with a message. In a letter quoted in To Be Young Gifted and Black she states:

There are no plays which are not social and no plays that do not have a thesis. . . . The fact is—if (the playwright) really had nothing he wanted us to tell us; nothing he wanted to persuade us of; no partisanship he wanted to evoke—well, he wouldn’t have written a play. (119)

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window is an “idea play” full of unpopular views on feminism, homosexuality, drugs, political corruption: ideas that challenge society and force us to confront social issues. Hansberry’s characters are liberals, homosexuals, intellectuals, politicians, prostitutes, and members of the middle class. They talk about everything from social revolt to “deviant” sexuality. Hansberry challenged her Broadway audiences by presenting a simple idea—If you do not like things the way they are, change them.

With virtually an all-white cast and scarcely a conversation about racial issues, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window challenged critics’ notions as well. There was still a popular belief that African- American writers should deal exclusively with black characters. Instead Hansberry’s play centers around Sidney Brustein, a Jewish intellectual struggling with issues of morality and abstraction, a man learning that people are more important than creeds. A complex character and a deliberately flawed protagonist, Brustein can be cruel, racist, and unjust; however, unlike the other characters in the play, he has a distinct awareness of his imperfections, and above all, a capacity for change and growth. As was Brustein, Hansberry was a Greenwich Village intellectual and political activist.

She and her husband held all-night “happenings” at their apartment with friends, artists, and poets. In reference to the play, Hansberry once said, “The silhouette of the Western intellectual poised in hesitation before the flames of involvement was an accurate symbolism of my closest friends” (Reuben).

It is not surprising that the play opened to mixed reviews. The novelist John Braine notes in his foreword to the 1966 printing, “Colored men don’t behave badly, homosexuals and prostitutes have the role of victim, and plays about people like Sidney Brustein end in . . . defeat. . . . This was, in the eyes of the critics, the worst offense of all; the play ends on a note of affirmation. Sidney and Iris are going to drag themselves to their feet and keep going forward” (Sign 136). Despite its critics, the play did have a dedicated following of supporters who invested in the play and kept it running until Hansberry’s death.

Her tombstone, an open book, is inscribed with the last line of the play, “Tomorrow we shall make something strong of this sorrow.”

For Discussion or Writing
1. Sidney Brustein has been called the modern “everyman.” Why do you think that is? Do you agree or disagree with this assertion? Why?

2. The Sign in Sidney Burstein’s Window is a complex play that addresses many political, social, religious, and racial issues. With these issues and the play’s characterizations in mind, write an essay that explores what you think is the play’s central theme.

3. Hansberry felt that A Raisin in the Sun lacked a central character. The same has been said of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. If there is not significant, focalizing character, why is that significant? How does that lack contribute to the play’s importance and meanings?

4. Expressionism in theater is defined as “a style of playwriting and stage presentation stressing the emotional content of a play, the subjective reactions of the characters, symbolic or abstract representations of reality, and non-naturalistic techniques of scenic design” (dictionary.com). Act 2 of The Sign in Sidney Burstein’s Window opens with one of the only expressionist scenes in the play. In it Sidney is transported to the mountains, where he plays the banjo, and the Iris-of- his-imagination arrives, hair flowing, dressed in “mountain dress,” and dances an Appalachian jig for him. What is the significance of Sidney’s fantasies about Appalachia? What do they reflect about his character? Iris no longer wishes to participate in this fantasy. What information does this give the audience about their relationship?

5. There are two drug fatalities in the play, Sal, the boy who swept floors for Sidney at the Silver Dagger, and Gloria Parodus. How are the deaths treated differently? How do both of these deaths impact the characters and the action of the play?