By August Wilson
In a crumbling south side Chicago recording studio in 1927, playwright August Wilson creates a somber world for the narrative of blues legend, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, her supporting band, and the white recording managers who control these African American artists’ lives. With this fictional interpretation of a seemingly inconsequential night of recording Rainey’s famous blues tune, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” Wilson explores the complicated dynamics that constrained African American artists during the first half of the twentieth century. Through the story of Ma, Levee, Slow Drag, and Toledo, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom not only celebrates the beauty and artistry of the blues, but also exposes the complexities of race, economics, power and domination associated with this African American performance genre.
