MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM
OUT NOW (NETFLIX)
CERT TBC / 94 MINS
DIRECTOR George C. Wolfe
CAST Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Michael Potts, Glynn Turman, Taylour Paige
PLOT Chicago, 1927. While singer Ma Rainey (Davis) squares off with white management over her music at a recording session, ambitious trumpeter Levee (Boseman) has an eye on Ma’s girlfriend Dussie Mae (Paige) and his heart set on launching his own career.
IN THE EARLY 1980s, two-time Pulitzer Prizewinning African playwright August Wilson began writing a collection of tenwas the first of these plays to get given the theatrical treatment in 2016, courtesy of director and star Denzel Washington, to whom Wilson’s plays have been entrusted. In many ways strengths are similar to , with the strong material and emotionally raw performances winning the day even when the transition from play to film isn’t so seamless.
