Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a 1982 play – one of the ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle by August Wilson – that chronicles the 20th-century African-American experience. The play is set in Chicago in the 1920s, and deals with issues of race, art, religion, and the historic exploitation of black recording artists by white producers.

For the film adaptation, see Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (film).
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Written byAugust Wilson
Date premiered1984
Place premieredEugene O'Neill Theater Center
Waterford, Connecticut
Original languageEnglish
SeriesThe Pittsburgh Cycle
SubjectA blues group waits to get to work in the studio, and tempers flare.
GenreDrama
SettingChicago, early 1927

The play's title comes from Ma Rainey's song of the same name, which refers to the Black Bottom dance. Rainey, whose life as a well-known blues-singer of the 1920s is an inspiration for the play, is also the titular character.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was published in the early 1980s and premiered at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Its Broadway debut at the Cort Theatre in 1984 won a New York Drama Critics' Circle award and garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Play.

Plot

In a Chicago recording studio in 1927, Ma Rainey's band players Cutler, Toledo, Slow Drag, and Levee gather to record a new album of her songs. As they wait for her to arrive they tell stories, joke, philosophize, and argue. Tension is apparent between the young hot-headed trumpeter Levee, who dreams of having his own band, and veterans Cutler and Toledo.

By the time Ma Rainey arrives with entourage in tow, recording has fallen badly behind schedule, enraging producers Sturdyvant and Irvin. Ma's insistence that her stuttering nephew Sylvester speak the title song's introduction wreaks further havoc. As the band waits for various technical problems to be solved, Levee and Cutler come to blows. Levee is then simultaneously fired by Ma and rejected by producer Sturdyvant and in a rage fatally stabs Toledo, destroying any possibility of a future for himself.

Productions

The play had its first staged reading in 1982 at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. The four main members of the cast -- Charles S. Dutton as Levee, Joe Seneca as Cutler, Leonard Jackson as Slow Drag, and Robert Judd as Toledo—almost immediately developed a very strong sense of ensemble.[1] At that time, the best-known actor in the cast was Theresa Merritt, who played Ma.

Direction was by Lloyd Richards, one of August Wilson's most frequent collaborators. Richards and Wilson worked together for almost two years on the play. It opened at the Yale Repertory Theater in April 1984, and then moved to Broadway's Cort Theatre. The show opened on October 11, 1984 and show ran for 276 performances. It received a 1985 Tony Award nomination for Best Play; Dutton and Merritt were nominated for acting awards. The production was recorded and released by Manhattan Records.[2]

A performance in 2009

It was first performed in the UK at the Royal National Theatre in London in 1989 in a production by Howard Davies starring Clarke Peters and Hugh Quarshie as Toledo and Levee.[3] It was enormously well received.

A Broadway revival opened on February 6, 2003, at the Royale Theatre, featuring Charles S. Dutton as Levee and Whoopi Goldberg as Ma. Directed by Marion McClinton, the show ran for 68 performances.

Subsequent UK revivals have taken place in Liverpool at the Playhouse starring Melanie La Barrie as Ma and Cornelius Macarthy as Levee (2004, direction: Gemma Bodinetz) and the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre in a production starring Antonio Fargas as Toledo, Ram John Holder as Slow Drag, and Johnnie Fiori as Ma (2006, direction: Jacob Murray).

In 2016 the National Theatre in London revived the show to great critical acclaim, garnering a Laurence Olivier award for best revival.[4] The production starred O-T Fagbenle as Levee and Sharon D. Clarke as Ma Rainey.

In 2019, a film adaptation for Netflix, produced by among others, Denzel Washington, and directed by George C. Wolfe was announced.[5]

Cast and characters
Characters 1984 Original Broadway cast 2003 Broadway revival
Ma Rainey Theresa Merritt Whoopi Goldberg
Levee (trumpeter) Charles S. Dutton
Slow Drag (bassist) Leonard Jackson Stephen McKinley Henderson
Toledo (pianist) Robert Judd Thomas Jefferson Byrd
Cutler (trombonist) Joe Seneca Carl Gordon
Irvin (Ma's manager) Lou Criscuolo Jack Davidson
Sturdyvant (studio owner) John Carpenter Louis Zorich
Dussie Mae Aleta Mitchell Heather Alicia Simms
Sylvester (Ma's nephew) Scott Davenport-Richards Anthony Mackie
Policeman Christopher Loomis Tony Cucci

Awards and nominations
Awards
  • 1985 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play
Nominations

References
  1. "Nemy, Enid "A 'Ma Rainey' Quartet Plays Its Own Special Music."". Archived from the original on 2018-08-19. Retrieved 2018-08-26.
  2. "Various - Original Broadway Cast Recording Ma Rainey's Black Bottom". Discogs. Retrieved 2020-12-28.
  3. "Other works for Clarke Peters". The Internet Movie Database. 2008. Archived from the original on 2015-03-21. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-04-27. Retrieved 2015-04-15.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. "Williams, Trey "Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman to Star in August Wilson's 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' Film for Netflix – Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo and Michael Potts will also star in the adaptation of award-winning play"". Archived from the original on 2019-06-24. Retrieved 2019-06-24.

Further reading
  • Wilson, August (1985). Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: A Play in Two Acts (First ed.). New York: New American Library. ISBN 0-452-25684-4.
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