Following “Fences” and “Ma Rainey,” he intends to continue adapting Wilson’s famed American Century Cycle, a 10-play series spanning each decade of the 20th century.
All of Wilson's plays hum with the sorrowful beauty of the blues but “Ma Rainey" is soaked through.
On a sweaty, summer day, a band has gathered at a white-owned recording studio to cut a new record with Ma Rainey (Davis), the pioneering “Mother of the Blues,” and an unapologetically liberated woman from the South.
It’s Cutler and Slow Drag and Ma Rainey talking," says Wolfe.
For Davis, Ma isn't a character she wants to let go of, or stop admiring.