Previous
Act 1
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power and Exploitation
Race and Identity
Collaboration vs. Independence
History, Tradition, and Change
Summary
Analysis
The band is upstairs in the studio with Ma. As everyone gets ready to record, Ma walks around barefoot and sings to herself. Meanwhile, Cutler pulls Irvin aside and tells him Sylvester can’t get through the part without stuttering. Distressed, Irvin decides that, in this case, the band should play Levee’s version of the song. He then retreats to the control room.
Given that Cutler has been so adamant about deferring to whatever Ma says, it’s surprising that he comes to Irvin with this complaint about Sylvester. This decision will surely cause tension, as it undermines Ma’s creative control and power over the band.
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Catching Levee making eyes at Dussie Mae, Ma tells Cutler to get him in line. Irvin’s voice then sounds over speaker system, as he tells Ma they’re going to start the session with “Moonshine Blues.” But Ma rejects this, saying the band will instead play “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” and that Sylvester needs a microphone. After an awkward pause, Irvin breaks the news that they’re going to do Levee’s version, since the band claims Sylvester can’t do his part correctly. This enrages Ma, who says that the band doesn’t have say over such matters—after all, it’s her band.
Again, Ma asserts herself as the undeniable leader of not just the band, but also the recording session. She doesn’t care what powerful white executives like Sturdyvant or Irvin say—it’s her music, so she’s the one who gets to decide how it’s played. By reminding everyone that this is her band, she seizes creative control and, in turn, power.
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Even though Sylvester stutters, Ma wants him to do the intro. It doesn’t matter how long it takes—he’ll get it eventually. Irvin tries to say there isn’t time to wait for him to get it right, but Ma disregards this. If Sturdyvant and Irvin want to make a record, they’ll simply have to make the time to do it the way Ma wants. She can easily go back on tour, she reminds them. Relenting, Irvin sets up a microphone for Sylvester.
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The recording session begins, but the band grinds to a halt when Sylvester stutters on the intro. Ma tells him not to worry and that he should take his time. Meanwhile, Sturdyvant comes on over the speaker system and tells Ma not to wait so long before coming in, but she snaps back that he can’t tell her how to sing her own song. She then complains that there’s no Coca Cola—she always has Coke when she sings, and the studio should know this. Over Sturdyvant and Irvin’s objections, she stops the entire session, saying she won’t sing until she has her soda. She sends Slow Drag and Sylvester to the store.
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While the band waits for Slow Drag and Sylvester to come back with the Coke, Ma pulls Cutler aside and chastises him for telling Irvin that Sylvester can’t do the part. She’s the one who makes those decisions, she reminds him. She also tells him to find somebody to replace Levee when the band gets to Memphis. Cutler tries to defend Levee by noting that he’s a good musician who can write music, but Ma doesn’t want to hear this—she doesn’t care if he’s good. According to her, he’s nothing but trouble. With this in mind, she waves Dussie Mae over and tells her to go sit somewhere out of sight, where she isn’t “flaunting” herself in front of Levee.
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Cutler expresses his concern about one of the other songs on the list, “Moonshine Blues.” The singer Bessie Smith recently recorded this song, so maybe it’s not a good idea for Ma to do it, too. Ma pays this no mind. She has been singing this song for a long time, and Bessie is just imitating her anyway. She then tells Cutler that she doesn’t care what anyone else says. White people are always trying to tell her what to do or how to sing, but she won’t take it. People like Irvin and Sturdyvant want to take her voice and profit off it, but they can’t do that until they actually have a recording of her. Until then, she holds all the power. After they make the record, though, they’ll have gotten what they wanted, and they won’t care about her anymore.
Downstairs, Levee sings one of his own songs while Toledo reads a newspaper, but then Dussie Mae enters, and he immediately starts flirting with her. This makes Toledo uncomfortable—since he wants nothing to do with Levee stealing Ma’s girlfriend—so he leaves. But Levee isn’t having much success with Dussie anyway—until, that is, he tells her that he’s going to have his own band soon. This impresses her, especially since Sturdyvant is going to record Levee’s music. Still, she tells him that she’s only interested in men who make good on their promises of wealth and success. Before long, though, they start kissing.
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Meanwhile, Ma waits in the studio and talks to Cutler about the blues, which she thinks white people don’t understand. When they listen to it, she says, they have no idea “how it got there.” They don’t get that the blues is a way for life itself to speak. For Ma, singing the blues is a way of processing and comprehending her own life. Without the blues, the world would be an “empty” place. Toledo chimes in at this point, saying that Ma helps fill this empty space with something vital, something people need. She agrees with this, but she knows she didn’t invent the blues, even if people call her Mother of the Blues.
Slow Drag and Sylvester return with the Cokes, at which point Slow Drag goes downstairs to find Levee and Dussie Mae locked in a passionate embrace. Slow Drag doesn’t say anything, instead just going to get a small sip of liquor to warm up from the cold. When he leaves, Levee tries to pull Dussie Mae toward him again, but she says he’s going to get her in trouble and rushes upstairs.
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Back in the studio, everyone is ready to record again. The band does two takes of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” but Sylvester keeps stumbling through his part. Finally, on the third take, he nails it, and the band is able to play through the entire number. Everyone celebrates when the song is over, but Sturdyvant breaks the news that something went wrong—Sylvester’s microphone wasn’t working because it got unplugged. As Irvin follows the cord, he says that Levee must have tripped over it and disconnected it. But then Irvin says the cord itself is faulty and that they need a new one, prompting Ma to storm off because everything is so unprofessional.
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Irvin rushes after Ma, pleading with her to stay as Sturdyvant yells that her career will be ruined if she leaves. Hissing at Sturdyvant to be quiet, Irvin assures Ma that her records will be hits and that he just needs 15 minutes to fix the cord. She reluctantly agrees.
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The band goes downstairs, where everyone chides Levee for messing up the session. They tell him he should focus on the music, not on Dussie Mae—who is, after all, “Ma’s gal.” Cutler tells Levee that Ma will ruin his career as a musician if she finds out there’s anything going on between him and Dussie. But Levee doesn’t listen, insisting he didn’t do anything wrong.
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Toledo momentarily sympathizes with Levee, since he knows what it’s like to act like a “fool” about women. He has behaved this way himself—he even got married and was infatuated with his wife. But then she joined the church, and though he had no problem with this, it gradually turned her against him. Slowly but surely, she got to know respectable religious men and realized Toledo wasn’t anything like them. Seeing Toledo as a “heathen,” she decided to leave. But Toledo isn’t bitter about this. The only thing to do, he says, is take whatever life gives. Levee, objects, however, claiming that he has complete power over his life. Death, on the other hand, is powerful and intimidating.
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The band members ignore Levee’s talk about death, instead going on to discuss Cutler’s brother. Toledo used to farm with him, and he misses that life. There’s something calming about the simplicity of farming, Toledo says. He even fantasizes about going back to it one day. Levee makes fun of him for this, but Toledo can’t be bothered.
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Toledo goes on to express his belief that Black people will always be dissatisfied, regardless of their circumstances. Levee, for his part, thinks this is reasonable, since Black people have to make do with such poor circumstances in the first place. Living as a Black man in the United States, Levee says, is like only getting to chew on a single bone while somebody else eats an entire pig. But Toledo says that Levee is lucky white people have even made it possible for him to be a musician—after all, they don’t have to listen to his music. From this perspective, Levee has a pretty nice life, getting to play music instead of doing something like hauling wood.
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Toledo and Slow Drag both agree that hauling wood is actually a pretty good job—an idea that mystifies Levee. This, he says, is the problem with his bandmates: they’re all too easily satisfied with life. They should be searching for new opportunities, always keeping an eye out for someone like Eliza Cottor to come around and offer to buy their soul on behalf of the devil.
Cutler hates Levee’s blasphemy and warns him about speaking this way. Toledo, however, points out that Black Americans have—in a way—already sold themselves to the devil by giving up their African traditions and imitating white people. The way everyone in the band is dressed is a good example—“We’s imitation white men,” Toledo says. Levee detests this idea. He's certainly no “imitation” white man. As soon as he gets his band and cuts his records, he’ll be like Ma and will have power over white people.
Although Levee thinks Ma has a certain authority over white men like Irvin and Sturdyvant, Cutler notes that this isn’t real power. After all, she can’t even hail a taxi in the North. Cutler tries to illustrate his point with a story about a Black reverend who was traveling by train from Tallahassee to Atlanta. At one point, the train stopped in a small town, so the reverend got off to use the restroom. Because Black people weren’t allowed to use the station’s bathroom, though, he had to walk all the way to a small outhouse—at which point the train left. He knew nothing about the town, and as he tried to orient himself, he noticed a group of white men staring at him.
Cutler continues his story, saying that the reverend tried to walk calmly away from the white men. But they followed and shouted at him, eventually firing a gun into the air. When he turned and let them catch up, they asked who he was, then ordered him to dance. As soon as he started, they ripped the cross from his neck and tore up his Bible, accusing him of heresy for dancing with these things. The only way for him to save himself was by dancing. And this, Cutler says, shows that white people don’t care about Black people—even if they’re respected members of society. The only reason white people care about Ma Rainey is because she can make them money, not because they respect her.
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Levee considers Cutler’s story and then snidely asks why God didn’t rescue the reverend from the white men. Cutler dislikes this question, telling Levee he’ll surely burn in hell, but Levee doesn’t care—plus, he can answer his own question: God didn’t save the reverend because God doesn’t care about Black people. He is, Levee says, “a white man’s God.” Moreover, Levee suggests that God actively hates Black people, which is why Levee doesn’t care about religion. “God can kiss my ass,” he says.
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Cutler is beside himself with rage, punching Levee and yelling at him about insulting God. The others yank him off, but then Levee pulls out a knife and screams out to God, imploring Him to protect Cutler. He tells God to save Cutler just like God supposedly “saved” Levee’s mother. He remembers hearing his mother scream out for God while the white men raped her, but God didn’t do anything. As Levee himself screams, he starts slashing the knife through the air, but instead of waving the blade at Cutler, he points it toward the sky. After a while, he determines that God is a “coward” and puts the knife away.
The lights go down, and when they come up again, the band is in the studio finishing the final song of the recording session. Everyone congratulates one another, talking about how good everything sounded. But although Ma compliments the others, she critiques Levee for playing too many notes. He tries to tell her that he was improvising and that his style is what people want to hear, but she’s uninterested in what he has to say. All she knows is that his playing distracted her from her own part. Offended, Levee says Ma shouldn’t tell him how to play his music, adding that she can fire him if she wants—which is exactly what she does.
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Levee storms out of the studio, saying as he goes that he doesn’t need the band. Once he leaves and the band starts to pack up, Irvin approaches Ma and tells her that, though he tried to talk him out of it, Sturdyvant insists that he can only pay Sylvester $25, and that this will be taken from Ma’s pay. Ma doesn’t accept this. If she wanted to give Sylvester $25, she could do it herself. If Sturdyvant doesn’t pay up, Ma says, she’ll never make a record with him again. When Irvin agrees to see if he can work things out, Ma tells him he better not come back without the money.
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Down in the band room, the musicians sit around and wait for Irvin to pay them. As Levee fumes, the others worry that Irvin will try to pay them with checks instead of cash. They talk about how pointless checks are to Black musicians, since no bank will let them cash checks.
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Meanwhile, Sturdyvant talks to Ma in the studio, claiming there was a “mistake” and that everything is in order now. Taking her and Sylvester’s money, Ma notes that the only “mistake” must have been that Sturdyvant realized she hadn’t signed the release forms for the record yet. As she turns to leave, Sturdyvant and Irvin both beg her to sign the forms, and though she hesitates, she eventually obliges.
After Ma leaves, Sturdyvant comes downstairs and pays each of the band members $25. Before he leaves, Levee stops him and asks about the songs he gave him. But Sturdyvant says he no longer thinks Levee’s songs will sell—they’re not the sort of thing he's looking to record right now. Levee argues that his music is exactly what people want to hear. They want new, exciting songs, not the boring old stuff they’re used to. Thinking it over, Sturdyvant agrees to give Levee five dollars per song, but this doesn’t satisfy Levee because he’s less interested in money than he is in recording his music.
Sturdyvant says he had some of his own musicians play Levee’s songs, which is when he realized they weren’t right. According to Levee, this must be why Sturdyvant doesn’t want them—after all, Levee has to be the one to play them. Still, Sturdyvant remains steadfast, saying the songs won’t sell as well as Ma’s records. “But I’ll take them off your hands for you,” he adds. And if Levee ever writes any other songs, he’ll buy those, too. Before Levee can respond, Sturdyvant stuffs money into his pocket and quickly exits.
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After Sturdyvant leaves, Levee takes the money from his pocket and throws it on the floor. The others are packing up their things and trying not to look at Levee, but Toledo walks by and steps on his shoe. Suddenly, all of Levee’s anger focuses on Toledo, who casually apologizes. But this isn’t good enough for Levee, who gets in Toledo’s face and screams at him, accusing him of “ruining” his shoe. Soon enough, Toledo loses his patience and tries to dismiss Levee, but Levee runs at him with his knife and stabs him.
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As Toledo crumples to the floor, the confidence and anger in Levee’s voice begins to drain. He repeats over and over that Toledo stepped on his shoe, asking him why he did that and, when he doesn’t get a response, shouting at him to stand up. He even tries to help Toledo up, but Toledo just falls back to the floor, and this renews Levee’s anger. He yells at him again, telling him not to look at him like that, his tone becoming increasingly frantic as he now begs Toledo to close his eyes. “Cutler,” he pleads. “Tell him don’t look at me like that.” And then, right as Cutler sends Slow Drag for help, the sound of a trumpet blares a high note, and the lights cut out.
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