Customer Reviews

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (August Wilson Century Cycle)

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This play shows how the rage caused by racism can be manifested in unusual ways. Each character, the blues singer and her band, has a different means of trying to gain control of a racist society hoping to, thereby, overcome it. The author's surprisingly humurous dialogue accentuates the story but, there is no mistaking the gravity of these characters's pain. Wilson's writing makes the play fast-paced and gives excellent insight to the histories of the individual characters. The use of blues lyrics and speech make them not just backdrops but characters, themselves. The abrupt ending seems a little forced, but the play is extremely entertaining.

Recognized as a great American playwright with numerous awards, August Wilson has brilliantly chronicled the black experience through decades. Depicting the 1920s, he wrote "Ma Rainey" in 1982, a real life blues singer.

The scene for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", takes place in a recording studio in 1927 where two white music executives are making a record with blues singer, Ma Rainey and a group of musicians.

Because the focus is on four male band members. it may take a while to try to put a face with each character, but within a short time, you grasp who the characters are - their values, beliefs and fears.

Ma Rainey's tone of voice is profound and nobody can push her around. Some critics report that Ma Rainey was exploitive and abusive to her band members, but I certainly did not get that impression. She was just tough and she knew how important her role was in blues music! Ma Rainey didn't take any crap from the white executives or anyone.

The dialogue interweaves with Ma's performance onstage and the band members during rehearsals. Their identities evolve and it's clear who and why they are as they share their experience with racist America and we then know their role in a racist society and industry.

A dramatic ending caps the story when the most bitter player reacts violently when another member steps on his shoes. To me, the incident seemed unjustifiable to provoke such a violent reaction by another member. It appeared out of place.

If you have an interest in the work of a great playwright or another interpretation of black experience through the decades, read more from this amazing man.

This play is set in a studio during the early days of sound recording. Ma Rainey's back-up band awaits the overdue arrival of the so-called Queen of Blues, discussing their lives and arguing about the music scene and their places in it. The white studio execs are practically tearing their hair out over Ma's tardiness and the demands that she is sure to make when she arrives. When she finally comes, she is every bit as demanding and overbearing as we expect, but also very perceptive-she is well aware that black artists are being exploited by the very record company people who continually urge her to be "reasonable" about the amount of money that she "wastes" on personal demands while recording the music that makes them so rich.

Although it features very good dialogue and some fine monologues, nothing much happens dramatically during the course of the play. There is an explosive finale, but it feels contrived and overdone, as though Wilson didn't know where to take his characters after all of the talking stopped.

Readers of this space know that over the past year or so I have highlighted the musical works of various acoustic and electric black blues performers, mainly the former. The hidden question posed by those performers and subsequently by this reviewer is- "What are the blues?" The answers I have given have ranged from the perennial- "the blues is the dues" to old Lightnin' Hopkins' refrain- "the blues ain't nothing but a good woman on your mind". Playwright August Wilson posed this very question in this his first, I believe, play "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom". His answer is far more profound that mine could ever be when he has Ma say the blues are "way of understanding life". And then proceeds in his little beauty of a play to give a black version of the way that life played out.

The story line of this play is fairly straight forward, although probably an unusually theme for a serious play, about the trails and tribulations of blacks recording blues records in Chicago in the mid-1920's. And not just any blues singer off the farm, but the most famous female blues singer of her day, Ma Rainey, and her band. But that is not the half of it. In that small physical space and musical universe of the recording studio and with her motley group of band members that seemingly represented every possible black musician type that Wilson could image, Ma Rainey, the Mother of The Blues and the whites in charge of production (and who will reap the disproportionate share of the profits) has raised every timely issue for blacks in the 1920's, the 1980's when he wrote the play and, notwithstanding the Obama presidential victory, now.

Wilson's conceptual framework is impeccable. Placing the scene in 1920's Chicago permits him to work with the migration of blacks out of the south in the post-World War I period in order to show the contrasts (and similarities) between the `country boys' (Toledo) and the `assimilated' city boys (Levee). Moreover, he is able to succinctly draw in the questions of white racism (powerfully so in the story of Levee's mother's rape by white men) , black self- help (Levee's father's response to his wife's rape), black hatred of whites, black self-hatred, black illusions (that of Ma in her `queenly' relationships with the profiting whites), black pride, the influence of the black church (good and bad), black folk wisdom ( as portrayed by Cutler, the senior band member) and, in the end, the rage behind black on black violence (Levee) resulting from a world that was not made by the characters in this play but took no notice of their long suppressed rage that turned in on itself. Like I said above Wilson provides a very profound answer to the question posed in my first paragraph. So if anyone asks you what the blues are you now know what to say- read and see Mr. Wilson's play.

This is the fourth play I have read by August Wilson, the other three being "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," "The Piano Lesson,"and "Fences" - the latter two won Pulitzer prizes. This play deals with the same social issues concerning black Americans that are standard in the plays of Wilson. Of the four I have read, this one is unique in that it is set in Chicago and not Pittsburgh. I must say, as good as this play was, the story did not have as many dimensions as the others I have read, and therefore, not as complex - making less room for character development. To be fair, this was one of Wilson's earlier plays, and perhaps he was still trying to develop the social element in his plays. My biggest praises for the play is that it is very funny at times, more so than the others with which I am familiar. Also, as a musician myself, I liked the setting of the play (a recording studio.) I must say, however, that the dramatic conclusion of the play was a little overdone and puzzling.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a fantastic play by August Wilson. The themes are multiple. I chose to focus on Black History on two fronts. There is the White American man's shaping of American History, and there is the shaping of Black African American History. Sadly, the American majority had more control over their history or more vegetables with which to make their stew. Therefore, there is not as much oppression in America as they faced in Europe. America became their Promised Land. African Americans had to fight and struggle to get out of slavery, get out from the second hand citizenship in order to write their History in America. Some people might believe we left our Promised Land in Africa. August Wilson likens our endeavors to grow a nation to stew and leftover stew. His metaphors and other poetic language is magnificent like a hearty stew.

"You get a stew...You take and make your history with that stew.....You can't eat it all...You got some leftovers. You already making you another history...cooking you another meal, and you don't need them leftovers no more. What to do? See, we's the leftovers. The colored man is the leftovers...The problem ain't with the white man. The white man knows you just a leftover. 'Cause he the one done the eating...But we don't know that we been took and made history out of. Done went and filled the white man's belly and now he's full and tired and wants you to get out the way and let him be by himself."

In the play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Ma Rainey, I think, plays a small part compared to the men in the play. Although she is the famous person making the big bucks, she doesn't have as much dialogue. Perhaps, this is to prove a point about the African American female in that part of American History. I would love to have more time to reread this play and rethink it. It is like stew. It's rich with carrots, meat, peas and as my father called it "corn likker." I am excited to read his next play while still thinking about this one.August Wilson

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Really good book to read with a very nice story line.

"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (1985) is part of August Wilson's "Century Cycle" of ten plays and is set in Chicago in the 1920's. The black bottom, a dance originated in New Orleans, became very popular during the twenties in the Flapper era. Ma Rainey, a successful singer tours around the country with her own band, and sings a black bottom song. Although she is the title character, she is not the main character in this play. Levee, who writes his own music, wants the band to adopt his style of playing, and wants his own band, is the central character. He even wants to steal Ma Rainey's girlfriend. He's a rebel who seems bent on self-destruction. Why not call the play "Levee's Gripes" rather than lead us to believe it's about the singer?
After a long section of Levee arguing with Ma's band members, we look forward to the entrance of Ma, hoping that she'll take over the play and give the play a more engrossing direction. She comes on stage, a very demanding and egotistical performer and sings her song, but she doesn't entirely take over the play. She is fed up with Levee and gets back at him.
The play takes place in recording studio in which the white record producer and Ma's white manager hold sway. Ma's band is supposed to be rehearsing while they're waiting for the diva to enter, but they are arguing and fighting. It's a very talky play with sections of songs such as when Slow Drag sings "Hear Me Talking to You." There are some funny lines in the play, and the entrance of Ma and her entourage is almost like an old vaudeville routine, like a movie from the twenties when she comes on stage with a cop in tow. Ma's insistence oh having her stuttering nephew sing is comic.
Levee's chief antagonist in the band is Toledo, the thinker and reader. This play deals with more racially charged issues than some of August Wilson's other plays. The eloquent speeches about race and the black experience are very significant and show Wilson unafraid to deal with the crucial issue.
The play has a melodramatic ending that really wasn't necessary. The play was one that Wilson put a great deal of time and effort into, but the structure of the play is flawed. Audiences may be moved by the earnestness and power of the speeches on race, but as a play it lacks a single-minded focus and unifying design.

This play brings out the struggles of the African American musical artist,how they had to claw, bite and even fight each other and also be strong to get any recognition. How their talents were exploited by the white man for their own self gradification. Ma Rainey was a strong black women whom could have helped her band members, but at times I think she only thought of her on selfish needs. I hate to say but her attitude is typical of some artist today, all about them selves and not about helping their fellow man. However I think Mr. Wilson brought out her desire to help others and her determination to get her way in the matter of her nephew, but I think it was at the wrong time and at the expense of the band member. The tragedy at the then end was very shocking and unexpected. A good read, but not one of my favorite August Wilson plays.

This book came to me falling apart. The spine was not properly attached in the binding process and the pages were falling out. I did not even get the chance to read page one before the middle 5o pages were in my other hand. The publisher of this book is a jankcy crook at best. Of course amazon will take it back, however, they will not refund my overnight shipping charges. What a crock of $#!~. You get the picture.