Singing and living the blues: Sharon D Clarke as Ma Rainey (centre) with the Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom company. Photo credit: Johan Persson
Theatre: Lyttelton, National Theatre
Play: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Playwright: August Wilson
Director: Dominic Cooke
Review by Joy Francis
August Wilson’s assured and passionate grasp of the dehumanising and insidious impact of racism and segregation on African Americans is shown keenly in his breakthrough play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Set in a white-owned recording studio in Chicago in 1927, the play exposes us to the real life Mother of the Blues Ma Rainey as she is scheduled to record some of her rousing songs, including Black Bottom.
Except Ma is late – again. Her manager Irvin (a shifty Finbar Lynch) tries to placate agitated studio owner Sturdyvant (Stuart McQuarrie) who is shredding his last nerve over her diva antics.
In Ma’s absence, Sturdyvant and Irvin paint a vivid picture of a prima donna, with a difficult personality, prone to lateness and grand entrances; a star who must be obeyed or god help you.
Ma’s band members’ arrival dead on time doesn’t reduce Sturdyvant’s stress levels as studio time is money. Unfazed by Ma’s tardiness, the band go into the bowels of the building to bide their time and rehearse. This is the place where the play comes alive as we are invited into the unequal world of the black man; where past wounds shape present actions.
Through regular interruptions, and delays, the band members compete over whose playlist should be rehearsed. Personality clashes and political differences crop up, gradually revealing what makes these four men tick.
Ma’s musical director Cutler (Clint Dyer) respect’s her creative wishes. He doesn’t want any boats rocking on his watch and is a man of faith. Toledo (Lucian Msamati) is the philosopher, black activist and bookworm, whose frustration with how his people are treated and the need for a collective black solution are never far from his lofty proclamations.
Slow Drag (Giles Terera) is cool and a charmer who uses stories as currency, while Levee (an impressive O-T Fagbenle), the baby of the group, is a darker soul, with a hidden axe to grind and a dream to sell his own songs and front his own band.
The humour, trivial competitiveness, colourful storytelling and smooth musicianship masks deep hurt and powerlessness. Each man tells a story that shows their inner life, insecurities, pain and exploitation, often at the hands of “the cracker white man”.
By the time a bejewelled Ma swans in with her girlfriend Dussie Mae (Tamara Lawrance) and stuttering nephew (Tunji Lucas), Sturdyvant is a babbling wreck. Before long we see the harsh and complicated truth behind Ma Rainey’s high-handedness.
The recording studio is a microcosm of the outside world. Ma Rainey’s demanding nature hides her frustration at her conditional power, despite her success. Her bargaining tool is her voice, her music and its commercial worth to the white mainstream. Once she signs on the dotted line she is no longer of great value.
Thorn in everyone’s side: O-T Fagbenle (Levee) and Giles Terera (Slow Drag). Photo credit: Johan Persson
Levee is a thorn in everyone’s side. A hothouse of rage behind a gritted smile, he is an outsider and resents being teased for being “spooked” by the white man as he tries to sell Sturdyvant his songs.
His disturbing childhood has fostered a thirst for revenge and disrespect for god for forsaking him and his family. But it’s this misdirected anger, and spats with the band (especially Toledo), which leads to a heartbreaking and pointless tragedy.
Ultz’s inventive stage design serves Dominic Cooke’s energetic and exciting revival well. It showcases the racial hierarchy, with the cramped recording booth elevated and aloof atop a spiral staircase with a ‘No Admittance’ sign. The expansive studio floor below is where the band, the star and the white bosses mingle. But below stairs, in cramped conditions, is where the band wait impatiently to be called while disagreements fester.
The performances are all round pitch-perfect. Sharon D Clarke is regal, feisty, confrontational and complex as Ma Rainey, but it’s O-T Fagbenle’s Levee that is the catalyst for some of the most engrossing moments. His emotional impotence, intellectual inadequacies and internal self-loathing are displayed with such unpredictable electricity that you are left torn between pity and horror.
August Wilson has given us an important cultural gift which is timely, timeless and offers historical weight to the #BlackLivesMatter campaign. A must see.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is at the Lyttelton, National Theatre, until 18 May 2016.