Denzel Washington’s Vision: The Museum of the Moving Image Honors Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Blues singer Ma Rainey was plus sized in many ways, most especially her voice. In a new film based on August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Viola Davis gives her Ma a grimace to go with her mega-sound, as large as life for blacks in America. Davis’s Ma is a grand performance balanced by that of one of her horns-men, lithe Levee, played with charm cum mischief and madness by Chadwick Boseman. Ruben Santiago-Hudson adapted Wilson to perfection in this gem, and this week, the movie, to air on Netflix, had its premiere at the Museum of the Moving Image gala. Virtual, this event was a state-of-the-art forum on the movie’s production, starring Viola Davis and cast, costume designer Ann Roth, director George C. Wolfe who accepted an award from producer Denzel Washington.

Washington, a longtime interpreter of August Wilson’s art, vowed to make the playwrights’10- play cycle, one for every decade of the 20^th century, into film. That vision started with his direction of Fences in 2016, an Oscar nominated film in which he starred with Davis. While Fences does not take place in a recording studio, Wilson's dialogue is always rhythmic. Speaking about the musicality of Ma Rainey, the actors talked about filming with rehearsal time as if this were a staged production, and the bond created among the players. The actor Glynn Turman, Toledo in Ma Rainey, recounted Denzel seeing him in a production of the play and saying, “Stay ready. I stayed ready.”

At the MoMI gala, Viola Davis got to the crux of the play, the need for each character to feel value, power. When Ma is not in the room, who is in charge? It’s a one-up game that defines much of human interaction. Ma Rainey is the only Wilson play that revolves around a historic figure. Davis said, “The fear of playing someone real is there’s little room for interpretation.” If she were going to play Michelle Obama --just saying-- she’d have to adhere to every detail. But the acting is the same in terms of approach to character: “to make them a human being. That’s always the work.”

Providing Davis with a padded rump and bosom to match, Ann Roth talked about the transformation she saw in Viola as she arrived straight from the airport and tried on Ma’s look. She liked her gold and glitz, she said of creating Ma, and she was showbiz, over-the-top country style. In the trajectory of the 20^th century, set in Chicago in the ‘20’s, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, finds the characters in a new league up north where they will flourish or fail. Framed by performances not found in Wilson’s play, this movie hits every award note.

Regina Weinreich