The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window – “The World Is About to Crack Down the Middle”

1959. A race for district leader in playwright Lorraine Hansberry’s Greenwich Village neighborhood pitted a veteran incumbent against a reform candidate. One of her friends hung a sign for the underdog in her window that provoked unexpected vandalism and threats. This became the seed of Sidney Brustein. The first draft featured a cohabiting couple on different sides. Four years later, a final version shifted its axis.

Julian De Niro (Alton Scales), Andy Grotelueschen (Wally O’Hara)

The story centers on Faustian bargains (what price your soul?), some with  awareness, others suckered in. Hansberry’s own fervent activism is reflected in treatment of racial, religious and sexual bigotry. Though there’s an intellectual component, Brustein is not pedantic. Characters are fallible, struggling; empathetic. It’s dense and somewhat long, but riveting.

Sidney Brustein (Oscar Isaac) is an obstinate liberal, a fluently quoting intellectual writer, and 60s romantic who’d rather be living in the woods playing his banjo than deal with the world’s pervasive corruption. American folk music and its ideals is both the soundtrack of his life and a bridge to wife Iris (Rachel Brosnahan). “Let down your hair, dance for me,” he cajoles not only when feeling playful, but also as an avoidance mechanism. (The latter is exuberantly choreographed by Sonya Tayeh.) His latest venture having gone belly-up, he jumped at the opportunity to buy – on credit – a small, weekly newspaper.

Rachel Brosnahan (Iris), Oscar Issac (Sidney)

Sincere, activist friend Alton Scales (Julian De Niro, yes, a De Niro) convinces him to use the paper to endorse Wally O’Hara (Andy Grotelueschen) who seems to be one of the good guys. De Niro is low key and able. Grotelueschen sympathetically blowsy. Sidney hangs a sign.

Like many aspiring performers, Iris is a waitress – at a pancake house. The young woman refers to her “profession” with hope, but has so little confidence she never makes it to an audition. Failure is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over time, Sidney’s become testy rather than supportive. Iris winces. She’s unsurprised her husband took on another venture without speaking to her. “A newspaper? When are you going to grow up?”

Miriam Silverman (Mavis)

Iris has two sisters. Mavis opted for security – a nice house and errant husband. She’s cognizant of trade-offs. The older sibling has constructed a life of practicality and rationalizations, sharing by way of a constant stream of dresses Iris will never have occasion to wear. Her world is small and obtusely defended. (Miriam Silverman, with just the right clip, beleaguered self assurance, and later, credibly unexpected self awareness.) “The world is about to crack down the middle,” Sidney tells Mavis during one encounter.

The youngest, Gloria (Gus Birney), swinngs widely the other way. She calls herself a model, but has for years been a successful call girl. Skinny and agitated, possibly drug fueled, she’s obviously beaten down. We meet her late in narrative. (I can’t get past Birney’s sometimes unintelligible, little girl voice.) Alton, who doesn’t know the truth, is in love with Gloria and wants to marry her. Iris has wary hope. Sidney declares Alton proletarian, Gloria, Madison Avenue, and predicts failure. Mavis is enthusiastic even when told he’s a Communist, until she discovers light skinned Alton is Black.

Gus Birney (Gloria), Oscar Isaac (Sidney)

The Brusteins’ bohemian circle also includes upstairs neighbor, David Ragin (Glenn Fitzgerald), a gay playwright who’s written “14 plays about not caring,” and Max (Raphael Nash Thompson), an older conceptual artist.

We watch the Brusteins’ marriage seriously fray – Sidney, misogynistic and insensitive, Iris, growing backbone. It’s not that they don’t love one another, but colorful illusion has worn thin. “I’m not your mountain girl anymore,” Iris says when Sidney sidesteps another issue with his banjo. Sidney, Iris, Alton, Gloria, and Mavis, respectively, deal with important misperceptions. There are consequences – some fatal – and reverberations. What and who will rise from the ashes?

Rachel Brosnahan (Iris)

As recently seen in HBO’s Scenes From a Marriage, Oscar Isaac brings such verisimilitude to roles, we feel like a fly on the wall. His Sidney is charming, passionate, and infuriating, a whole flawed man whose every gesture and expression belongs.

Rachel Brosnahan, otherwise known as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, showcases nuanced acting chops engendering empathy. Physical nature of her portrayal is specific and appealing.

Director Anne Kauffman has an eye for individually defining gestures that enrich characters. Even bearing is distinctive. Staging of one later scene extending to the theater floor will give the audience much to discuss. As there’s no listing for an intimacy director, I presume Kauffman and movement director Sonya Tayeh have engineered the most naturally frisky, affectionate, sexually tinged stage physicality I’ve seen in years.

Scenic design by dots creates a raised, fully contained apartment replete with fire escape and the floor above. It rightly looks as if filled with street finds.

Brenda Abbandandolo’s costumes make characters appear as if they walked in off the street, albeit in the 1960s. Music recordings and live banjo (sound design by Bray Poor) are as pristine as dialogue.

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window debuted on Broadway in 1964, ran 101 performances and, possibly overshadowed by Hansberry’s award winning A Raisin in the Sun (1959), closed shortly before the playwright’s death from cancer at the age of 34. This is its first production on a New York stage since then and well worth seeing for a multitude of reasons.

Photos by Julieta Cervantes
Opening: Oscar Isaac (Sidney Brustein)

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window by Lorraine Hansberry
Directed by Anne Kauffman

Through March 24, 2023
Brooklyn Academy of Music