Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry [35]
(WALTER’S voice has risen in pitch and hysterical promise and on the last line he lifts TRAVIS high)
Blackout
SCENE THREE
Time: Saturday, moving day, one week later.
Before the curtain rises, RUTH’S voice, a strident, dramatic church alto, cuts through the silence.
It is, in the darkness, a triumphant surge, a penetrating statement of expectation: “Oh, Lord, I don’t feel no ways tired! Children, oh, glory hallelujah!”
As the curtain rises we see that RUTH is alone in the living room, finishing up the family’s packing. It is moving day. She is nailing crates and tying cartons. BENEATHA enters, carrying a guitar case, and watches her exuberant sister-in-law.
RUTH Hey!
BENEATHA (Putting away the case) Hi.
RUTH (Pointing at a package) Honey—look in that package there and see what I found on sale this morning at the South Center. (RUTH gets up and moves to the package and draws out some curtains) Lookahere—hand-turned hems!
BENEATHA How do you know the window size out there?
RUTH (Who hadn’t thought of that) Oh—Well, they bound to fit something in the whole house. Anyhow, they was too good a bargain to pass up. (RUTH slaps her head, suddenly remembering something) Oh, Bennie—I meant to put a special note on that carton over there. That’s your mama’s good china and she wants ’em to be very careful with it.
BENEATHA I’ll do it.
(BENEATHA finds a piece of paper and starts to draw large letters on it)
RUTH You know what I’m going to do soon as I get in that new house?
BENEATHA What?
RUTH Honey—I’m going to run me a tub of water up to here … (With her fingers practically up to her nostrils) And I’m going to get in it—and I am going to sit … and sit … and sit in that hot water and the first person who knocks to tell me to hurry up and come out—
BENEATHA Gets shot at sunrise.
RUTH (Laughing happily) You said it, sister! (Noticing how large BENEATHA is absent-mindedly making the note) Honey, they ain’t going to read that from no airplane.
BENEATHA (Laughing herself) I guess I always think things have more emphasis if they are big, somehow.
RUTH (Looking up at her and smiling) You and your brother seem to have that as a philosophy of life. Lord, that man—done changed so ’round here. You know—you know what we did last night? Me and Walter Lee?
BENEATHA What?
RUTH (Smiling to herself) We went to the movies. (Looking at BENEATHA to see if she understands) We went to the movies. You know the last time me and Walter went to the movies together?
BENEATHA NO.
RUTH Me neither. That’s how long it been. (Smiling again) But we went last night. The picture wasn’t much good, but that didn’t seem to matter. We went—and we held hands.
BENEATHA Oh, Lord!
RUTH We held hands—and you know what?
BENEATHA What?
RUTH When we come out of the show it was late and dark and all the stores and things was closed up.… and it was kind of chilly and there wasn’t many people on the streets … and we was still holding hands, me and Walter.
BENEATHA You’re killing me.
(WALTER enters with a large package. His happiness is deep in him; he cannot keep still with his newfound exuberance. He is singing and wiggling and snapping his fingers. He puts his package in a corner and puts a phonograph record, which he has brought in with him, on the record player. As the music, soulful and sensuous, comes up he dances over to RUTH and tries to get her to dance with him. She gives in at last to his raunchiness and in a fit of giggling allows herself to be drawn into his mood. They dip and she melts into his arms in a classic, body-melding “slow drag”)
BENEATHA (Regarding them a long time as they dance, then drawing in her breath for a deeply exaggerated comment