Who could ever have imagined that two artists so instrumental in the profoundly beautiful film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom would never get to see its release? Playwright August Wilson, who made his Broadway debut in 1984 with Ma Rainey—the 1920s-set play in his 10-play decade-by-decade chronicle of Black American life—died in 2005, succumbing to liver cancer at age 60. And in late August, star Chadwick Boseman—an astonishingly versatile actor known for playing history makers such as Jackie Robinson, Justice Thurgood Marshall, and James Brown before ruling the Marvel cinematic universe as T’Challa/Black Panther—died at age 43 after a quiet, years-long battle with colon cancer. Boseman’s Ma Rainey role—as Levee, the silver-lunged trumpeter with a blistering talent and fiery temper—would be his final screen appearance. “I think Levee has a warrior spirit,” Wilson said of the character in a 1988 interview with Bill Moyers. “I salute his willingness to battle, even to death.” Reflecting on Wilson’s almost painful foreshadowing, it now seems inevitable that Boseman would be cast as Levee in this George C. Wolfe–directed, Denzel Washington–produced Netflix adaptation. (Also inevitable: Boseman’s posthumous Best Actor Academy Award. Wait for it.)
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★★ review here.]
The film is getting a very limited theatrical release, but it’s actually very well suited for Netflix—better than any stage-to-screen adaptation in recent memory, in fact. Ma Rainey takes place almost entirely in an airless recording studio in the steamy 1927 Chicago summertime. (For those keeping track, yes, Wilson’s original stage directions specified a chilly “early March” day.) The imperious Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), aka the Mother of the Blues, and her backup band—Levee, trombonist Cutler (Colman Domingo), pianist Toledo (Glynn Turman), and bassist Slow Drag (Michael Potts)—are almost too big for the room. Levee certainly is, at least in his own mind: He creates ornate, spotlight-stealing arrangements, much to Ma’s consternation; he yearns to write, play, and record with his own band; and he just can’t keep his eyes, or his hands, off Ma’s girlfriend, Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige), whom he sweet-talks with lines like “Can I introduce my red rooster to your brown hen?” There’s a door in the studio that Levee constantly struggles with; it’s stuck, or locked, but he keeps trying, growing more frustrated with each attempt. When he finally gets it, he busts through straight into an alley. After all that, he ends up going nowhere.
Playwright, performer, and Wilson authority Ruben Santiago-Hudson—a 1996 best featured actor Tony winner for the 1940s play, Seven Guitars, and a 2017 best director Tony winner for the 1970s play, Jitney—has taken on screenwriting duties, slicing and sculpting Wilson’s script into a 94-minute production that hums along like one of Ma’s hit records. He’s also bookended the piece with music (Branford Marsalis wrote the original score), including a gut punch of a coda and a scene-setting opener that follows Ma from a straw-strewn outdoor tent in the middle of the Georgia woods to, post–Great Migration, an indoor jewel box–style Chicago theater with tuxedo-clad musicians and a slip-dressed dancers (the period-perfect shimmies, shakes, and swivels were provided by Camille A. Brown).
Davis packs on the padding, layers on the lashes, and swallows a mouthful of gold teeth to play the “Ma don’t stand for no shit” blues singer. This marks her fourth Wilson role after Vera in Seven Guitars; Tonya in King Hedley II (the ’80s play, for which she won a Tony); and Rose in Fences (the ’50s play), which she reprised on screen opposite Washington, earning both a Tony and an Oscar. And, if we’re lucky, it won’t be the last. Washington has committed to bringing Wilson’s entire Century Cycle to the screen. We’re waiting (im)patiently.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is streaming on Netflix beginning Dec. 18. Information: netflix.com
