Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Synopsis

Chicago 1927. The city where you keep out of Al Capone's way while you listen to Louis Armstrong. Prohibition-era speakeasies dispense illicit hooch and rip-roaring jazz. In a downtown recording studio, a bunch of musicians practise their riffs, while blues legend Ma Rainey takes her own sweet time. As they wait, they talk. Of love, life and creative differences. And, in wildcat trumpeter's Levee's case, the burning desire to change the world with his music.

Our Review:

24 October 2006

Like the recent Broadway revival of August Wilson’s bluesy drama, the publicity focuses on one big-name member of the cast. On the Big White Way it was Whoopi Goldberg and in Jacob Murray’s excellent UK production, it is Antonio Fargas; aka Huggy Bear from the seminal TV hit Starsky and Hutch.

Whilst Fargas is quietly impressive in this tragic tale, it is Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s angry young man, Levee, who provides the piece with real backbone.

Ma Rainey (Johnnie Fiori) is late for rehearsals. Members of the band sit patiently waiting, discussing black politics before the diva makes an entrance. The 1920’s blues singer is not presented as a caricature here. The great thing about Fiori’s performance is that she compliments Wilson’s powerful writing. She struts around the studio, angrily, like a bull in a china shop, counteracting the controlling behaviour of the white producers. Goldberg may have reportedly lacked sizzle in her portrayal but Fiori is cooking...

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