The compelling thing about Sidney Brustein is that although political commitment is the overriding concern, by and large the play is not about political issues in the usual sense. It concerns a small group of rather ordinary people who face a variety of real problems in their lives…. Sidney, in the midst of this group, has more "social conscience" than any of them but is really not up to the role of ethical and political standard-bearer that he pretends. Until Iris leaves him, his awareness of social problems is limited to a sense of discomfort and disillusionment about the quality of urban life. He does not feel social problems as actually touching him, and he is not as yet, and has no reason to be, angry about the conditions of his life. (pp. 363-64)
The organization of the play is essentially the creation of a real world around Sidney for him to observe and draw conclusions from as he moves toward this final realization…. [It] is one of Sidney Brustein's most admirable qualities and the essence of Lorraine Hansberry's clarity on the issues involved that it appears he is led to his understanding not, so to speak, by the playwright, but by the circumstances of his life. His radicalism at the end of the play is therefore not a luxury to him, nor an accident, but a necessity. His experience in the real world has brought him to this point (he being, we should keep in mind, a rather ordinary man), as it must bring many more like Sidney to radicalism, given the circumstances of life in America today.
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