Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – Photo: Teresa Castracane / Round House
There’s a lot of talking, posturing, and jostling over who’s the boss in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, now at Round House Theatre in a solid co-production with Olney Theatre Center.
Set during a testy 1920s studio recording session with blues queen Ma Rainey (Nicole Michelle Haskins) and her four-man band, the play pointedly, and often hilariously, illustrates how the work and/or good spirits come grinding to a halt due to disputes over who’s running things ’round here.
Mel Sturdyvant (Chris Genebach) is the white man running this Chicago record company. Irv (Michael Glenn), also white, is the guy managing Ma and the band, charged by Sturdyvant with keeping Ma in line so they cut this record. Trombonist Cutler (Craig Wallace) is the bandleader, in charge of corralling the musicians. But, unquestionably, nobody’s in charge of Ma.
Known as the Mother of the Blues, and proven as the voice and sound that’s sold countless records, Ma Rainey is the boss around here. So much so, that her power is felt almost as much in her absence, which is most of the show.
Part of Wilson’s ten-play chronicle of 20th-century African-American life, and the only one not set in Pittsburgh’s historically Black Hill District, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is about power and powerlessness. For the era’s colored men and women, roads to power were narrow and treacherous.
Yet, without knowing her whole story, we can see Ma made her way. And regardless of the status any man in that studio believes he holds, everybody instinctively understands the true pecking order — except Levee (Yao Dogbe), the band’s cocky horn player (which is perhaps redundant, if you know musicians).
Forever complaining about the dated “jug band music” he feels the band is stuck on, Levee talks a big game, and Dogbe inhabits his bluster fully, from his head to his horn.
While everyone, including the audience, waits for a tardy Ma to show up, Cutler rehearses the band — which also includes piano player Toledo (Ro Boddie) and bassist Slow Drag (Derrick Truby) — and Levee plots his future loudly. He’s gonna start his own band, record his own songs, run his own show.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – Photo: Teresa Castracane / Round House
Somehow Wilson transmits that the universe will respond to Levee’s preening arrogance with a proportionate comeuppance. It’s only a matter of time before he’s taken down a peg or two, or more. Dogbe’s performance burns so hot, the turnaround is sure to be chilling.
It starts with Ma’s arrival, a queen in her fur coat, thoroughly pissed off with a Chicago policeman (Zach Brewster-Geisz) who wants to take her to jail over a traffic accident. Here we are with some man challenging Ma Rainey’s awesomeness before she’s even stepped foot in the door.
Given Ma’s unruly state, Haskins has to enter already turned up to ten. She still find dips and turns in the performance as Ma, with her latest female conquest Dussie Mae (Kanysha Williams) in tow, cools off, gets comfortable, and actually gets to work.
Outfitted by costume designer Samantha Jones in the fur and jazzy Flapper fringe, Haskins carries Ma Rainey’s aura regally. Circling around her, each member of the ensemble makes their dynamic contribution to the overall atmosphere.
Director Lili-Anne Brown has the cast well-attuned to the play’s ebbs and flows of anger, laughter, and shocking violence, and moves the actors smoothly around Arnel Sancianco’s handsome and functional three-level stage. Making thoughtful use of background action to inform the story that’s front and center, Brown peels back layers of Wilson’s drama exposing truth, some of it thrilling, some of it tragic, too much of it painful. As Ma says, the blues contains it all.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (★★★★★) has been extended through Oct. 18 at the Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Hwy., in Bethesda. Tickets are $45 to $107, with discount options available, including $25 Partially Obstructed View seats. Call 240-644-1100, or visit roundhousetheatre.org.
Life looks alright in America to Reina, a desperate but starry-eyed teen mom in rural El Salvador who sets out for the U.S. in Brian Quijada's brilliantly conceived Somewhere Over the Border.
As hinted in the title, this musical, with book, music, and lyrics by Quijada, reshapes the familiar narrative of The Wizard of Oz into Reina's perilous journey of escape from poverty, violence, and political unrest in her homeland, to the gleaming American dream.
It's a deceptively simple concept that Quijada elaborates with incisive drama, tart wit, and consistently smart choices in how he fuses L. Frank Baum's Oz characters to Reina's story, inspired by his own mother's immigrant journey to the U.S. in the 1970s.
Over the course of 30 years in Rajiv Joseph's two-hander Gruesome Playground Injuries, childhood friends Kayleen (Irene Hamilton) and Doug (Jimmy Bartlebaugh) both suffer more than their share of scrapes, bruises, and near-fatal events. The pair's complicated friendship likewise encounters a few close calls in their lifelong shared journey of hurt and healing.
Alternately brooding and lighthearted, the play hovers between heartfelt coming-of-age drama, star-crossed romance, and persistent gallows humor surrounding Kayleen and Doug's preponderance of painful, sometimes gruesome, ills and injuries.
The trusty stewards of Stephen Sondheim at Signature Theatre roll into a new season, unpacking the maestro’s demanding but rewarding musical Merrily We Roll Along.
The show, with music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by his Company collaborator George Furth, tells a haunting showbiz tale in reverse chronological order, charting a best friendship from after it’s ended, back to where it began. Merrily often finds its characters making merry, but at its heart it’s a breakup story, tinged with regret, suited to Sondheim’s minor-key melodies.
The score is also full of bold, brassy flourishes, not unlike Signature’s new production, staged and choreographed by artistic director Matthew Gardiner. In tone, performance, and design, the production captures Merrily’s tension between glamour and heartache, success and regret.
You must be logged in to post a comment.