Lorraine Hansberry didn’t live to see her final play, Les Blancs (The Whites) produced. The author of A Raisin in the Sun died of cancer at 34 before completing the complex work, inspired, it is believed, by her reaction to the Broadway production of Jean Genet’s Les Nègres (The Blacks), which she critiqued for the Village Voice in her 1961 article, “Genet, Mailer, & the New Paternalism.”
According to Jonathan Shandell in his 2025 book Readying the Revolution, Hansberry “denounced Genet’s drama for trafficking in ‘romantic racism’ and a ‘new paternalism’ in its vision of [African] Black people primarily as exotic and violent primitives.”
Hansberry argued that, “For all of its sophistication,” The Blacks “is itself an expression of some of the more quaint notions of white men.”
Hansberry’s husband, Robert Nemiroff, adapted and published Les Blancs after her death. In it, Hansberry “explores the waning days of early 20th-century colonialism in an unnamed African nation, where the dynamics of colliding interests and loyalties unfold,” according to Oakland Theater Project (OTP) materials. The play opened July 13.
Director James Mercer II wasn’t familiar with the script when asked to direct the play. His first response was, “Are you sure you want me to direct this piece?” Known for speaking his mind bluntly, he said, “this play is speaking some hard truths” that people don’t necessarily want to hear right now.
Like many, he also puzzled as to why Hansberry, a Black woman, created a piece in which the only Black woman character remains silent throughout. But after contemplation, he decided to cast Black women to play all the roles. Jeunee Simon, Aidaa Peerzada, Rezan Asfaw, Brittany Sims, Champagne Hughes, Monique Crawford, Jacinta Kaumbulu and Ije Success embody the characters in the play.
OTP originally considered using an all-Black cast, but keeping the gender roles intact, he said. This production will look at the play through the lens of “The Woman” in Hansberry’s script.
During rehearsals, Mercer asked his actors to “identify what they agree with in their characters,” which could be difficult. He also asked them to stretch their imaginations to envision what it’s like to walk through the world, for example, as a white American man, which one character is. “No restrictions. Expect to hear ‘yes’ all the time,” he said.
Rehearsals brought up some visceral reactions, he said, describing one “tough moment,” involving violence that “took everybody out.” Though the violence did not entail an actor perpetuating actual violence on another actor, but rather a character doing so to another character, it was still disturbing. “We work on taking care of each other,” Mercer said.
Parallels definitely exist between what happens in Les Blancs, with its explorations of colonialism and the moral corruption of authoritarianism, and what is going on today, he said. People are still being “othered.” He related a story from his own past where as a 13-year-old he watched a video of a Congolese woman in distress over conflict in her country. Only when she began crying, he said, did compassion arise in him for another human, not someone “other.”
Like Mercer, Ije Success wasn’t familiar with Les Blancs before being cast. Reading it for the first time, “I was speechless,” she said, “but fascinated” that the play raised more questions than it answered.
She plays two characters, Dr. Marta Gotterling, a white Protestant missionary in the remote African village where the play takes place, and Ngago, a male member of the local resistance to colonial rule.
Dr. Gotterling wants to “do her best to take care of people,” Success said, but is also naive and in a “state of ignorance” about the reality of the people she says she wants to help. Ngago, on the other hand, is a “warrior” who wants to “kill the invaders.” Working through physically embodying two starkly different people has been challenging but enlightening for Success as an actor.
She would like audience members to ask themselves: “What is the cost of war? What is the cost of colonization? These are global issues that are not so far from us here, now.”
‘Les Blancs’ plays through July 27 at Oakland Theater Project at FLAX art & design, 1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. Masked audience show July 17. $35-$60 plus pay-what-you-can by contacting the box office in advance at 510.646.1126 or oaklandtheaterproject.org.
