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A Bottom that Keeps on Movin'
by Karen Matalabos

Rare is it for a performance to truly "hold up, wait a minute, let me see that again" move you. But Charles S. Dutton, reprising his role as Levee in the Broadway revival of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, does exactly that he captivates, enchants, and mesmerizes. As the centerpiece of Ma Rainey, Dutton's Levee is an intricate character, who, along with his band mates and Ma Rainey (Whoopi Goldberg), epitomizes the struggle, pain, and centuries-long suffering of African Americans and more specifically, black musicians.

Set in early 1927 in a Chicago recording studio, Ma Rainey is an unconventional play whose strength lies in its characters' ability to tell a story and not particularly in its plot, which basically covers a recording session. Sturdyvant, the studio head, and Irvin, Ma Rainey's manager, anxiously await the ever-tardy "Mother of the Blues" Ma to grace the studio with her presence and record a few songs with her four-piece band: head-of-the-group Cutler, ambivalent black activist Toledo, humorous and smooth-steppin' Slow Drag, and the short-fused horn player Levee. As expected, Ma arrives late, with her nephew Sylvester and lady-friend Dussie Mae in tow, and, despite numerous delays, eventually records her songs.

Simple enough in its basic framework, Ma Rainey's strength lies in its bricks and mortar. Striving to make a name for himself and break free from the artistic confines of Ma's band, Levee, in believing that he will succeed, tumbles from a pedestal of cockiness to the pits of a near-maniacal meltdown when he discovers it can never be. Serving as the backdrop to Levee's demise is the casual, often comical interaction between the band members, especially the confrontations pitching Levee's so-called ignorance against Toledo's so-called wisdom. The conversational atmosphere of the band room scenes, whose topics of discussion help to uncover the roots of Levee's struggle, moves one to think that he/she is listening in on a private conversation rather than merely being a member of the audience.

The music of Ma Rainey, genuinely capturing the 20's flair of the blues, is the core of director Marion McClinton's production. From the aching call of the opening tune to the foot-tapping groove of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," the play's soundtrack showcases the heart of black music, the production and distribution of which form the basis of the play's conflict. Ma, whose musical achievements have lined the pockets of Irvin and Sturdyvant, is given first-class treatment only until she's done her part, and then, as she says, "it's just like if I'd be some whore and they roll over and put their pants on." Over the course of American history, the white establishment has exploited black musicians for profit something Ma Rainey has known and uses to her advantage, but also a lesson Levee excruciatingly learns firsthand through his own painful experience.

With rhythm and blues, with attitude and style, Ma Rainey successfully brings to the stage a microcosm of black people's overall struggle to be recognized, to be successful, and, most importantly, to be equal. Driven by a cast brimming with talent, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, in essence a tragic reflection of the nation's past, is one bottom definitely worth reaching.