arts & entertainment
Rainey
continued from page 9
– a certain gentleness about the character
that “doesn’t stay for very long.”
Ma Rainey had a lot of baggage to con-
tend with, says Johnson. She was creating
the mold of the famous Black female
recording artist. And as they say, it can be
lonely at the top.
“Not forgetting that her daily life was
White people not looking at her, spitting on
her. If she could she would probably beat
them up,” Johnson says with a laugh. “She
also had a masculinity to her that made it so
she could battle through the recording
world.”
But some of the men in Ma’s life also
knew that she was a commodity, especially
Mel the studio owner. She could make him
money. Lots of money. More money than
even Ma is taking in.
As Duffy Epstein, who plays Ma’s man-
ager Irvin, puts it: “The band makes 25
bucks a session, Ma makes 200 bucks and
Mel’s gonna make 10 grand.”
Irvin straddles the line between the Black
musicians and the White studio establish-
ment.
“He prides himself on getting along with
the Black musicians, but whatever sympa-
thy he has, and whatever feelings he has, in
society, he can only
take that so far,” says
Epstein. “He can’t pal
around with these guys,
he can’t, whether he
wants to or not, I’m not
really sure. He’s as nice
to them as he can be.”
Jones says the White
studio owners exploit
the Jewish culture in
order to connect them-
selves with the Black
blues musicians.
“These groups of
people would never
come together to pro-
duce one product if
wasn’t for this one thing, called the Blues,”
Jones said.
acting out
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is not a sim-
ple play to produce. There’s a large cast, dif-
ficult language and timing. Simply put,
August Wilson ain’t easy.
“Just because you’re Black, doesn’t mean
you speak the language of August Wilson,
what he did, beautiful-
ly, better than anyone
I’ve ever read, he cap-
tured a lexicon, a
rhythm, a musicality in
the African American
language that some of
us
have
actually
shunned from or mar-
ginalized. And he cap-
tured it and embraced
it and made it music.”
Jones, who has acted
in other Wilson plays,
including the role of
Elder Joseph Barlow
in last year’s Portland
Playhouse production
of “Radio Golf,” knows the difficulty.
“I did ‘The Piano Lesson’ and I played the
character of Doaker, and I had a 20-minute
monologue, it’s all about the piano,” Jones
said. “It’s 20 minutes. Now that’s nothing
compared to some shows, like a one-act
play, and I’ve done one-act plays and I gotta
tell you, the 20-minute monologue was
harder because it was roundabout, non-
sequitors, things that didn’t connect, I had
to start to imagine, create images in my
head about what I was saying because it was
not coming. It was not coming. I had to
learn things about memorization that I never
thought about before. I had to learn about
how the brain works, I had to learn how to
nourish the brain, when the brain passes
short-term memory into long-term memory.
I had to focus on memorizing at particular
times of the day because I know that there
are times that the brain is working a lot and
time when it isn’t.”
Jones said eventually he had to get out of
his own way.
“We don’t want to find out we’re stupid,”
he said.
With only four weeks to bring the produc-
tion to stage, Jones said it has definitely put
a strain on the cast.
“I’ve asked them to be uncomfortable and
continue to be uncomfortable, but in that
process, they felt they were in it together,”
he said.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” runs from
April 6 to May 1. Previews run from April
6-8. Opening night is April 9. Shows run
Wednesdays through Sundays. Of 20 per-
formances, 13 shows are currently sold out.
Visit www.portlandplayhouse.org to order
your tickets while they last.
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Page 14 The Portland and Seattle Skanner april 6, 2011