Ma Rainey

themes in Ma Rainey

Black music in a white recording industry

Southern fan base vs. northern financial base

Group participation vs. individual development (blues vs. jazz)

Working with/for white people vs. rising up against them- and when those overlap

Double standards/different rules for whites and blacks

Waits

who is the mother of the blues? Describe her:

Ma Rainey. She is an American blues singer who is considered the mother of the blues. She is flamboyant, a diva and considered a a bridge between music eras

History on Ma Rainey:

Born Gertrude Pridgett in Georgia, her parents performed in minstrel shows, she started performing with a song and dance troupe at 14, adapted the blues for her own shows and made the genre her own. She married Pa Rainey and toured with with minstrel shows (black people performed in black face). She eventually become a solo act

August Wilson's childhood

He was born Frederick August Kittel and he was raised by a single mother

Background on August Wilson's Ma Rainey and other plays:

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is one of 10 plays plays chronicling 20th century African American life called the Pittsburgh Cycle or The Century Cycle. One play for each decade. Ma Rainey's Black bottom is set in the 1920s. All of these plays except Ma Rainey's Black Bottom take place in Pittsburgh

How did the blues allow freedom?

Gender Freedom: Most blues performers were women

Sexual Freedom: the blues had provocative/sexual lyrics (not looking for domestic life) which was very different from the heterosexual modern songs of the day

Racial Freedom: for the first time, African Americans could make free decisions about their emotional and sexual lives. The beginning was a distinctly African American performance cultures which has endured to this day

Two most widely known blues women:

Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith

Ma Rainey's sexuality, did she try to hide it?

Bisexual. No. She was arrested for throwing an indecent and intimate party with a group of young women, Bessie Smith was her prodigy and possible sexual lover, her song Prove It On Me Blues is considered one of the earliest odes to lesbianism

Why was Ma Rainey considered a Paramount Wildcat?

She recorded at Paramount and released over 100 songs during a 6 year recording career. This led the transformation of Paramount Records from a subsidiary of a furniture company into a major recording label

What occupation was listed in Ma Rainey's obituary?

Housekeeper

History of Bessie Smith?

Born in Tennessee, one of 8 children, starting performing in the street at 8, joined Ma Rainey's show and started touring, was mentored by Ma Rainey, was buried in an unmarked grave that was tracked down by Janis Joplin

Who was cutler? His views on race? What does he talk about in his monologue?

Guitar/trombone player, the leader of the group. Racism can't be overcome, no matter who you are. The story of Reverend Gates

Who was Slow Drag? His views on race? What does he talk about in his monologue?

He plays the base. He things that you should have fun while you can, his people got through slavery so he can get through anything. Also thinks that white men are too uptight to have fun (Toledo is uptight like the white men so he also can't have fun). The story of Eliza Cotter, the man who sold his soul to the devil

Who is Toledo? His views on race? What does he talk about in his monologue?

He plies the piano and the only one who can read, Wilson describes him as having a partial understanding things he reads. He tries to offer cultural memory/lost history but undermines the characters knowledge of Africa and Africanness. He talks about stew and how they are all leftovers in the African diaspora

Who is Levee? Why does he arrive late to the session and what has he been doing?

He is the trumpet player, younger than the rest, artistic, ambitious, and angry.... a would be diva. He arrives late because he was buying new shows, he has been arranging blues standards as jazz pieces because he has been promised that he'll get to record his arrangements

What is important to Levee?

Pleasing white audiences, being affable/flexible/pleasant around white managers so that he can be successful

When do we get to know Levee's anger and ambition?

During his story about his father at the end of the first act, a story about smiling at whites while plotting revenge

Describe the divide between levee and the band:

Levee is the youngest and newest member who wants to write songs and headline his own band. The older band members seem content to be musicians who don't directly complain about how they are treated

Who has the power in this play?

Sturdyvant/Irvin -> Ma -> the band members

Do the white execs like working with Ma?

No. Sturdyvant says that he has no patience for Ma's behavior, expects Irv to make Ma record the songs with no trouble. From this, it is clear that Ma usually Dows what she pleases and this drives Sturdyvant crazy. Even though Ma isn't there yet, she possesses enough energy that Irv and Sturdyvant are already quarreling

Examples of Ma being a Diva:

She stops the entire recording proceedings for a coke

She makes Sturdyvant use her nephew as the voice introducing her even though he stutters and makes him pay the boy

She refuses to sign the contract releasing her songs until all her payment demands are met

What does Wilson show us by keeping our focus confined to the recording studio regarding ma?

He provides a space where an African American woman has complete control over the white and black men in her sphere even though in the real world she can't even get to the recording studio on time because her taxi driver won't take her

Significance of the white men being in the recording booth which is above everything else

This heigh signifies the power that they hold over the African American characters

Who wrote Harlem? What is it about? Who does it relate to?

Langston Hughes. Racial rage that builds up. Levee

Important themes in the second act:

Waiting, language and male banter, black masculinity as disempowerment, god's absence, Ma the diva/mother/survivor, white exploitation and appropriation of black culture

How does Waiting relate to material reality?

The band waits for ma, they wait for the white producers, they wait to record, time is controlled by white authority

How is waiting related to power dynamics?

Waiting becomes a symbol of racial hierarchy. The black musicians' time is treated as expendable while Ma's lateness disrupts that system

How is waiting related to Ma's resistance?

By refusing to hurry, she asserts control over her own labor and body. Her "diva" behavior is actually a form of economic and racial negotiation

Relate waiting to Levee's impatience:

Levee cannot wait. His desire for speed (modern music/quick success) aligns him with white capitalist expectations

Why is the N word used?

It is used among Black characters and operates as both camaraderie and aggression. It reflects internalized racism but also a form of in-group linguistic control

How is male banter used in the play?

Joking, boasting, storytelling among the band members creates a sense of community and survival. It is also used to mask vulnerability and trauma. It can also be about dominance, who can tell the best story, who is the most masculine, who has the power

What is the emotional core of the play?

Levee's speech

What is the content of levee's speech? What were the psychological impacts of the events?

At 8, Levee was given a duty to look after his mother by his dad who left for a few days. During this time he witnessed his mother's gang rape by white men. He tries to retaliate by going after them with a knife but they cut him and he almost dies. His father comes back and retaliates, kills four men before he is captured and lynched. It explains Levee's anger, volatility, and need for control. It also reveals how trauma is carried, not resolved

Relate Levee's memories to power:

As a child, Levee was powerless, feels emasculated. As an adult, he overcompensates through ambition, style and aggression

How does Ma appear on the surface? On a deeper level?

Demanding, difficult, controlling. She understands that the white music industry will exploit her voice and uses her fame to extract respect, money and control. She plays the system rather than trusting it

How is she bossy and like a mother at the same time?

She bosses the band/Sylvester around but also takes care of them, makes them into a family

How do Levee and Ma differ in their responses to exploitation?

Ma has a strategic response but controlling time and being a diva. She survives by understanding the system and looking after her own

Levee is hopeful for assimilation which leads to disillusionment and destruction. He is destroyed by believing in the system and only looking after himself

Why does Toledo make fun of Levee for being "spooked up" by the white man? Why does Levee explode?

Teasing is a part of masculine camaraderie. Levee is threatened because he takes it as them insulting his masculinity, bringing back emotions from when he was unable perform his masculine duty of protecting his mother from the white men

Story of the reverend:

The reverend was traveling north on a train. The train stopped and he got off to use the bathroom but the bathroom for black people was far away so when he got back he had missed the train. He starts walking along the train tracks at night (illegal) and white men catch up with him, forcing him to dance for his life

How does Levee respond to the story about the reverend?

This story sets him off again. He rejects God, says that he is absent or complicit in black suffering. This blasphemy is a form of protest. This parallels his misguided faith in white producers: he abandons one system of belief only to trust in another that also exploits him

What happens when Levee gives his songs to Sturdyvant?

He is dismissed, offered 5 dollars per song. He he internalizes this rejection because he has put all of his trust into this system.

How does Levee feel when Toledo steps on his shoes?

He blows up because the shoes symbolize his dreams/aspirations/pride. They are his attempt to construct a self that cannot be humiliated. This means that it is as if his dignity/dreams have been stepped on

What happens in the last moment of the play? What this signify?

Levee's songs are played by a white band. White ownership continues. Black creativity is extracted but black bodies are discarded, the product continues even without the person