August Wilson’s plays are not for the faint of heart.
Even acknowledging that, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is acutely harrowing: a cry of rage whose 1982 stage debut was almost six decades removed from its 1927 setting, and — sadly — just as relevant today, almost a full century after the events depicted within.
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| At first, the other combo members — from left, in the rear, Toledo (Glynn Turman), Slow Drag (Michael Potts) and Cutler (Colman Domingo) — are amused by the arrogance and swagger of the much younger Levee (Chadwick Boseman). But he'll soon wind them up far beyond patience and endurance. |
Director George C. Wolfe and scripter Ruben Santiago-Hudson have “opened up” this Netflix film adaptation a bit, tweaked the narrative chronology here and there, and amplified a key climactic metaphor (the latter a powerful enhancement). But rest assured: This remains Wilson’s play, and its frustrated anger and impotent despair are delivered via stunning work from stars Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman (the latter’s final film, prior to his untimely death last August).
Only rarely is a film able to deliver the intensity of live performances by charismatic actors, who literally suck the air out of the room when they saunter onto a stage.
This is one of those occasions.
A brief prologue establishes legendary singer Ma Rainey’s enormous popularity — deservedly dubbed “The Mother of the Blues” — among fans in her native Columbus, Ga. We then cut to Chicago, during the sweltering summer of 1927, where Ma has agreed to interrupt her current tour long enough to cut a record for the flyspeck Hot Rhythms label.
(Ma is the sole character in Wilson’s 10-play cycle who is based on a real person. She also was an unapologetically “out” lesbian, who in her song “Prove It On Me,” crooned “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends/Must have been women, ’cause I don’t like men.”)
Her band arrives first: pianist Toledo (Glynn Turman, who has played the role on stage), bassist Slow Drag (Michael Potts) and trombonist Cutler (Colman Domingo). Cornet player Levee (Boseman) is a bit late, having been distracted into purchasing a pair of flashy yellow shoes spotted in a shop window.
We’ve already seen — in the aforementioned prologue — that Levee has a high opinion of his musical chops, and has a tendency to upstage Ma (to her visual displeasure).
Once assembled, the four band members are confronted by the two white men supervising the recording session: exploitative, penny-pinching studio owner Sturdyvant (Jonny Coyne); and Ma’s manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos). Both want to know where the hell Ma is; Irvin does his best to calm Sturdyvant’s mounting anger.
Ma’s tardiness is deliberate: a power play intended to reinforce her insistence on obeying nobody’s rules but her own. Numerous turbulent dynamics emerge and evolve, as the narrative proceeds; Ma’s initial confrontations with Sturdyvant set the tone. Unpleasant and imperious as she is, Ma is no fool; she repeatedly relies on the only card at her disposal — her talent, and willingness to walk away — given that the white world controls the rest of the deck.
Sturdyvant wants her on record, and she knows it.
Ma eventually arrives with a small entourage: nephew Sylvester (Dusan Brown) and current girlfriend Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige).
The rest of the story bounces between two locations: the shabby basement “ready room,” where the band members rehearse and wait to be called upstairs; and the studio, where the imperious Ma wages war with Sturdyvant.
The tension becomes equally pervasive downstairs, where the arrogantly cocky Levee constantly mocks, demeans and insults his much older colleagues. He’s bewildered by — and contemptuous of — their pragmatic willingness to accept a demeaning status quo that leaves them essentially anonymous in the music world (although, it must be mentioned, blessed with steady gigs).
Levee is smart, charismatic and talented — and knows it — and has lofty ambitions of staking a claim in the music industry, by fronting a band under his own name. The question — as the other three musicians keep insisting — is whether it’s reasonable to envision a future full of promise and possibility, or whether the still festering demons of America’s recent past will keep him imprisoned.
Not to mention Levee’s own demons … and he has plenty. As the story proceeds, Levee’s prodding behavior prompts an eruption of blistering stories and recollections from Toledo, Slow Drag and Cutler, each of whom has witnessed horrific things.
As has Levee.
Boseman’s grinning, cock-o’-the-walk swagger is both beguiling and infuriating. On the one hand, we can’t fault his ambition; at the same time, his behavior toward his band mates slides into outright cruelty … even as they patiently tolerate his insolence. But the shift, when Levee rises to the bait and confesses his own childhood truth, is impressively powerful: Boseman’s eyes blaze, his features twisted into righteous anger, his body positively vibrating with fury, his words emerging in a shower of saliva.
We can’t help recoiling, almost in terror.
And not merely from the electrifying intensity of Boseman’s performance, and the quieter, more dignified — but equally compelling — work by Domingo, Turman and Potts. Their stories and memories are sickening and horrifying, all the more so for the calm resignation with which the three older men relate them.
Then there’s the matter of a stuck door, along one wall of the basement: a door that Levee can’t remember having seen before. His fixation on that door, and what he ultimately does with it, becomes a tragic metaphor.
Our initial glimpse of Davis, as the film opens, is almost shocking. Her Ma is strikingly, defiantly unpleasant and unattractive: overweight, laden with bling, and buried beneath far too much makeup. She’s rude, bullying and intolerant; she’s particularly cruel toward Irvin, who does his best to have her back with Sturdyvant. Even so, we quickly come to admire the way she fights for herself, and for her talent.
The passion — and pain — that Davis puts into her performance is mind-blowing. At moments we sense that Ma wrathfully speaks not only for herself, but for her entire race (which is, of course, deliberate on Wilson’s part).
Coyne is appropriately smarmy as Sturdyvant, who vibrates with unspoken rage every time he loses an argument to Ma. We constantly feel sorry for poor Shamos’ meek, toadying Irvin, who isn’t near the negotiator he imagines, and is in fact powerless before Ma and Sturdyvant.
Paige is enormously unsettling as the shamelessly flirtatious Dussie Mae, who provocatively wiggles her lithe body in a deliberate effort to arouse anybody watching. Brown wins our hearts as young Sylvester, eager to please and wanting to “fit in,” who is given an impossible task by Ma; the embarrassment emanating from Brown is palpable.
Wolfe, editor Andrew Mondshein and cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler deftly cut back and forth between studio and basement, blending group- and two-shots with tight close-ups. This is a rare film that can’t have too many of the latter, because all the actors make excellent use of them.
The blues tunes — including the one that gives this story its title — are a lot of fun, and Branford Marsalis’ underscore slides between poignant, unsettling and downright apprehensive.
Be advised: The language is coarse, earthy and relentlessly profane. There’s simply no other way to present this story, which builds to a horrific conclusion.
And the coda — which, if I’m not mistaken, slyly indicts celebrated (white) bandleader Paul Whiteman for cultural appropriation — leaves an even more bitter taste.
You’ll not soon forget this one.
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