Why did a veteran Philly actor take 30 years to come back to ‘A Raisin in the Sun’?

In 1993, Melanye Finister played Beneatha Younger in People’s Light & Theatre Company’s A Raisin in the Sun. More than 30 years later, when People’s Light approached her to return to the play, she wondered why the world needed yet another theatrical production of the Lorraine Hansberry classic.

Also, did Finister really want to play Lena, Beneatha’s and Walter Lee Younger’s overbearing mother? Lena who, in 1940s Chicago, is tasked with deciding what to do with $10,000 in insurance money from her late husband’s policy in an era when the reality of racism clouds the family’s every decision.

“I was like really, y’all? Raisin again?” Finister said in a recent interview. “I put it off and I put it off. But then we started to prepare and I went, ‘Wow, this story is so heartbreaking and it’s still so freaking relevant.’ I thought, ‘Lorraine, oh, Lorraine, I thought we made some progress.’ Here we are again.”

In the new People’s Light production, Finister’s Lena is empathetic and stern, more I love you than I told you so. She is as fierce as she is forgiving. When she tells Beneatha (Morgan Charéce Hall) that Walter Lee (Eric B. Robinson Jr.) is worthy of their family’s love and support despite a disastrous business decision, the audience agrees. We feel Mama’s sorrow, seeing the role she plays in Walter Lee’s self sabotage.

Raisin is a classic and classics are never outdated, said Zak Berkman, producing artistic director of People’s Light. It’s why Raisin — named after a line in Langston Hughes’ 1951 poem, “Harlem” — is one of seven plays this season celebrating the People’s Light’s 50th birthday on its Malvern stage.

“Lena requires an actress who can convey feeling without the dialogue so we understand the decisions she makes,” Berkman said, describing Finister’s talent. “That is part of the power of that play, there is so much unsaid. Raisin lets us celebrate our platform and give flowers to Melanye and Lorraine.”

» READ MORE: People’s Light’s ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ is a tribute to Lorraine Hansberry’s very relevant legacy

Finister is reflective. America has come far since Raisin, the first Broadway play written by a Black woman when it opened in 1959. Covenants designed to keep families like the Youngers from living in white, working class neighborhoods are illegal now. Walter Lee and his wife, Ruth (Candace Thomas), aren’t limited to working as chauffeurs and domestics.

But this revival also coincides with the current presidential administration’s decisions to roll back the very federal protections that stopped discrimination. Sixty years after the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is apparently enough time to erase the remnants of 246 years of slavery and 100 years of federally sanctioned segregation.

Finister shakes her head. She is 60 years old.

Finister was just 28 when she played Beneatha in 1993, earning her an equity card during that production, a big deal for young actors eager to support themselves through the arts.

“Because of Lorraine Hansberry, I got my professional union membership and my wages went up,” Finister said. “She continues to feed me. Her work has done so much for Black theater artists. It’s profound, the power of that one little play.”

Finister was among the third wave of actors who joined People’s Light in the 1990s, Berkman said. Along with veterans Mary Elizabeth Scallen and Susan McKey, she helped the company form its artistic identity and connect with area school children enjoying their first taste of the arts.

She’s acted in more than 60 plays since, including the 1996 production of Antony and Cleopatra; she starred as Cleopatra. “I’m here to tell you that play was bad,” Finister said with a laugh. “I wasn’t ready for Cleopatra, neither was the director.”

Some were memorable like 2005′s The Member of the Wedding; Finister starred as the Addams family’s maid Berenice. “That was such a beautiful set,” Finister recalled. Many others were hits like Lettie. In the 2023 performance, she was a woman who spent 20 years in prison for killing an abusive husband.

Her work as an actor has helped support her family. She lives in Haverford with her husband; they have two children. Finister is a member of the Arden Theatre Company and last year she starred in the company’s production of Ladysitting, based on author Lorene Cary’s book of the same name documenting Cary’s care of her 101-year-old grandmother. Finister played Cary.

During Ladysitting’s run, Finister traveled to D.C. to care for her own dying mother who had introduced Finister to acting when she was a shy elementary school student. Her mother died last June.

“That play really helped prepare me,” said Finister. “And to enjoy our time together in the end.”

Despite Finister’s impressive theater credits, Raisin remains special. By becoming Beneatha, a 20-year-old woman with dreams of medical school and the play’s comic foil, she learned how to build a character. Finister had decided her Beneatha believed Mama didn’t love her as much as she loved Walter Lee. Finister’s mentor and late actor and director Ceal Phelan helped her bring that interpretation to life.

The result, wrote then-Inquirer critic Douglas J. Keating in 1993, was a “classy performance befitting a young woman who considers herself more intelligent, more politically aware, and more socially competent than other members of the family.”

Finister sends love and light before each performance to the late Patricia Langford who was Mama all those years back. “She was a tougher Mama than I was,” Finister said. “Still, every performance I draw on Pat’s legacy.”

The beauty of Raisin, Finister said, is in its details. This production, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, is no different. Gems this time around include: Hansberry’s likeness superimposed on a curtain raised before the show. A photo of Lena’s late husband — actor Sidney Poitier, the original Walter Lee Younger — sits prominently on the living room table.

Raisin’s construction is what makes it magical, Finister adds. The timing, dialogue, and descriptions are perfect. They make Finister’s performance sing, whether as Beneatha or Mama. “As long as I continue to understand the circumstances, believe in the situation, and I’m listening to what I am receiving, Lorraine Hansberry’s beautiful words will take me where I need to go.”

“A Raisin in the Sun” runs through March 30 at the People’s Light Theatre at 39 Conestoga Road, Malvern.