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      ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ Review: All the Blues That’s Fit to Sing

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s pick‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ Review: All the Blues That’s Fit to SingViola Davis and Chadwick Boseman star in a potent adaptation of August Wilson’s play.Viola Davis stars in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” August Wilson’s 1984 play about a recording session in Chicago in the 1920s.Credit…David Lee/NetflixDec. 17, 2020Updated 11:26 a.m. ETMa Rainey’s Black BottomNYT Critic’s PickDirected by George C. WolfeDrama, MusicR1h 34mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.“White folks don’t understand about the blues,” says the pioneering singer Ma Rainey, as imagined by August Wilson and incarnated by Viola Davis. “They hear it come out, but they don’t know how it got there. They don’t understand that that’s life’s way of talking.”Albert Murray, the great 20th-century philosopher of the blues, put the matter more abstractly. The art of the music’s practitioners, he wrote, involves “confronting, acknowledging and contending with the infernal absurdities and ever-impending frustrations inherent in the nature of all existence by playing with the possibilities that are also there.”“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” Wilson’s 1984 play about a recording session in Chicago in the 1920s, both dramatizes and expresses that duality. Absurdities and frustrations abound, and the lethal, soul-crushing shadow of American racism falls across the musicians and their instruments. The specific and manifold evils of Southern Jim Crow repression and Northern economic exploitation are unavoidable. The members of Ma’s band swap stories of lynching, assault and humiliation, and Ma fights with the white owner of the record label (Jonny Coyne). By the end of the play — a swift hour and a half in George C. Wolfe’s screen adaptation — one man is dead and another has seen all his prospects evaporate.[embedded content]But the sense of play and possibility, the joy and discipline of art, are also, emphatically, there. There in Ma’s big voice and smoldering, slow-rolling charisma. There in the tight swing of the players behind her — Cutler (Colman Domingo) on trombone; Toledo (Glynn Turman) on piano; Slow Drag (Michael Potts) on bass; and an ambitious upstart named Levee (Chadwick Boseman) on cornet. There in the voices and personalities of the actors: Turman’s gravelly wit; Domingo’s avuncular baritone; Boseman’s quicksilver; Davis’s brass. And there above all in the singular music of Wilson’s language, a vehicle for the delivery of vernacular poetry as durable and adaptable as the blues itself.This version of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” on Netflix, is part of an ongoing project to bring all of Wilson’s plays — a cycle representing aspects of Black life in the 20th century — to the screen. That makes it, in some ways, definitive by default, part of an archive of preserved performances that will introduce future generations to the playwright’s essential work.From left, Glynn Turman, Chadwick Boseman and Michael Potts are the players behind Viola Davis’s Ma Rainey.Credit…David Lee/NetflixIt’s also definitive because it will be hard, from now on, to imagine a Ma Rainey other than Davis, or a Levee to compare with Boseman. The rest of the cast is first-rate too, but those two carry the play’s meatiest, most complicated theme, and enact its central antagonism. Each character is an ambitious, inventive artist, and their inability to harmonize creates an undertone of tragedy that grows more insistent as the day wears on.Ma, who rolls into the studio late, flanked by her nephew, Sylvester (Dusan Brown), and her young girlfriend, Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige), can seem almost like a caricature of the “difficult” artist. She insists that Sylvester, who stutters, record the spoken introduction to her signature song. She demands three bottles of Coca-Cola (“ice-cold”) before she will sing another note, and continually upbraids her nervous white manager (Jeremy Shamos). But this behavior isn’t the result of ego or whim. It’s the best way she has found of protecting the value of her gift, which once it becomes a commodity — a record — will enrich somebody else. The hard bargain she drives is the best deal she can get.She also represents the old school — an established star who works in a Southern style that Levee thinks is behind the times. Part of the history embedded in the play is the story of the Great Migration of Black Southerners to the industrial cities of the North, and Levee suspects that his fleet, light-fingered approach to the blues will appeal to the tastes of the migrants, and also cross over to white record buyers. He epitomizes a different kind of artistic temperament as well — cocky, impulsive, tilting toward self-destruction. He argues with the other musicians, refusing to listen when they try to talk sense to him. He seduces Dussie Mae, a risky career move to say the least. He’s a young man in a hurry, eager to cash checks before they’ve been written.Of course it’s hard to watch Levee — to marvel at Boseman’s lean and hungry dynamism — without feeling renewed shock and grief at Boseman’s death earlier this year. And though “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” has been around for a long while and will endure in the archive, the algorithm and the collective memory, there is something especially poignant about encountering it now.Not because it’s timely in an obvious or literal way — the argument of Wilson’s oeuvre is that time to reckon with racism is always now, because Black lives have always mattered — but because of some unexpected emotional resonances. Wilson’s text is a study in perseverance, but it’s haunted by loss, and to encounter it at the end of 2020 is to feel the weight of accumulated absences.Some are permanent and tragic, like losing Boseman at just 43. Others are, we hope, temporary. This is a rendering of a work written for the stage that begins with a concert — a sweaty, sensual spectacle of the blues in action. It’s also a movie that you’ll most likely encounter in your living room or on your laptop, further confounding an inevitable identity conundrum. Should we call this theater, cinema or television — or a sometimes graceful, sometimes clumsy hybrid of all three?Maybe the question doesn’t matter, or maybe it will matter more once we regain our critical bearings and the theaters and nightclubs fill up again. But at the moment, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is a powerful and pungent reminder of the necessity of art, of its sometimes terrible costs and of the preciousness of the people, living and dead, with whom we share it. “Blues help you get out of bed in the morning,” Ma says. “You get up knowing you ain’t alone.”Ma Rainey’s Black BottomRated R. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Viola Davis and Company on ‘Ma Rainey’ and Chadwick Boseman’s Last Bow

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsBoseman and Davis head the cast of the new drama. It’s the story of “a woman who was known for her autonomy, who did not barter for her worth, and the men who were around her,” Davis said.Credit…Photo illustration by Jennifer Ledbury/The New York Times; Photos by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images Europe; David Lee/NetflixSkip to contentSkip to site indexViola Davis and Company on ‘Ma Rainey’ and Chadwick Boseman’s Last BowMembers of the creative team discuss what it took to adapt the August Wilson play for Netflix and trying not to be “outdone” by the late actor.Boseman and Davis head the cast of the new drama. It’s the story of “a woman who was known for her autonomy, who did not barter for her worth, and the men who were around her,” Davis said.Credit…Photo illustration by Jennifer Ledbury/The New York Times; Photos by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images Europe; David Lee/NetflixSupported byContinue reading the main storyDec. 17, 2020Updated 10:57 a.m. ETA nation riven by racial violence, an industry with a history of exploiting Black culture, white executives eager to portray themselves as allies, and Black artists at the center of it all, contending with a system that would toast them with one arm and pick their pockets with the other.The story of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” August Wilson’s acclaimed 1982 play about Black pride, white power and the blues in 1927 Chicago, is as incendiary today as the day it was written. A new feature film adaptation, due on Netflix Dec. 18, revives Wilson’s historical narrative in a contemporary moment when so much and so little has changed.The second entry in his 10-play American Century Cycle, chronicling the Black experience in each decade of the 20th century, “Rainey” won three Tonys for its original run on Broadway. The film adaptation is already an awards contender for next year, thanks to a searing lead performance from Viola Davis and a powerful showing by Chadwick Boseman, in his final film role before his death from cancer in August.To play Ma Rainey, Viola Davis said she looked to “my Aunt Joyce and other Black women that I know to fill in the blanks.”Credit…David Lee/NetflixDavis plays Ma, an indomitable performer based on the real-life “Mother of the Blues,” whose unprecedented superstardom has taken her from tent shows in Barnesville, Ga., to a recording session in Chicago. The white men overseeing the session, visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads, fear and respect Ma like everyone else in her gravity-bending orbit, including her girlfriend Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige) and quartet of seasoned backing musicians: Levee (Boseman), Cutler (Colman Domingo), Toledo (Glynn Turman) and Slow Drag (Michael Potts). But when Levee’s own career ambitions put him at odds with the group, its fragile infrastructure threatens to implode.The Tony winner George C. Wolfe (“Angels in America”) directed the film from a script adapted by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. In a recent round-table conversation, conducted via video chat, Wolfe, Davis, Domingo, Turman and Potts discussed working with Boseman, Rainey’s potent legacy and asserting your worth in a world built on your devaluation. These are edited (and spoiler-free) excerpts from our conversation.The movie is dedicated to Chadwick Boseman, who delivers an unforgettable performance as Levee. What are some of your memories of working with him? What did he bring to the performance that you saw as his collaborators that we might not know about as viewers?GEORGE C. WOLFE I remember one time, when the band was just sitting around during rehearsal, he started to launch into one of his final monologues. It had all been very casual. And then, at a certain point, it wasn’t casual — it was a fully invested moment that was full of energy and intensity and truth. I just remember thinking, “Oh, we’re going there?” And he went there. We were all sort of half the characters and half who we were, and then, in that moment, the half that was the character took over. And it was kind of glorious.From left, Glynn Turman, Chadwick Boseman, Michael Potts and Colman Domingo.Credit…David Lee/NetflixGLYNN TURMAN I loved the way he always had his cornet nearby. He was always doing something with it, becoming familiar with it, discovering how a musician and his instrument become one. Anytime he picked it up, it was in the right position. Anytime he set it down, it was in the right position. Anytime he put it to his mouth, it was in the right position. He became a musician. It was wonderful to watch that. We all kind of took that cue not to be outdone, as actors do. [Laughter]COLMAN DOMINGO That’s the truth.WOLFE Who, this group? I’m confused. [Laughter]I wonder, when you look at his performance now or when you watch the film, does it play differently at all for any of you in light of his passing? Has its meaning changed for you in any way?DOMINGO Absolutely. I watched it the other night and I heard Chad’s language in a different way. You see his strength and his humor. It brought tears to my eyes very early on, knowing what I know now. And knowing we were all very well able-bodied people and we were doing this tremendous work, showing up and wrestling with August’s language. This man had another massive struggle on top of that. I don’t know how he did it. I sat with myself for a good 15 minutes after watching it and I had a little cry, especially when I saw the dedication. It truly struck me that he’s not with us. I knew he wasn’t, but to see that written, it kind of decimated me.VIOLA DAVIS There was a transcendence about Chad’s performance, but there needed to be. This is a man who’s raging at God, who’s lost even his faith. So [Boseman has] got to sort of go to the edge of hope and death and life in order to make that character work. Of course, you look back on it and see that that’s where he was.I always say, a carpenter or anyone else that does work, they need certain tools in order to create. Our tool is us. We’ve got to use us. There’s no way to just sort of bind whatever you’re going through and leave it in your hotel. You’ve got to bring that with you, and you need permission to do that. And he went there, he really did.Boseman “became a musician,” Turman recalled. “It was wonderful to watch that. We all kind of took that cue not to be outdone, as actors do.”Credit…David Lee/NetflixGeorge and Viola, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is the only play in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle that is inspired by a real-life public figure. What do you think it is about her story that is ripe for drama?WOLFE I think one of the reasons that August was drawn to her is [that] she lived outside the rules. And when somebody lives outside the rules, it becomes very clear what the rules are. I love that she’s going to fight the fight, not thinking about the consequences. She’s going to fight the fight because she must. She reminds me of … my grandmother was like this. If you were a Black woman, if you waited around for somebody to acknowledge your power, it was never going to happen. So you had to claim your power. She has that quality that everybody has to evolve if you are an artist, period, and if you are an artist of color, magnified: This is the truth and this is my talent, and this is what I’m willing to do and this is what I’m not willing to do. I think she lived her life so purely that way. And if you set that in 1927, you’ve got drama, because the world isn’t acknowledging any of that.DAVIS One of the things I love about August is he gives us something that we have not had in a lot of narratives, especially in movies: autonomy. We’re always sort of shown in a filter of a white gaze. It’s like how Toni Morrison talks about “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison. She’s like, “Invisible to whom?” August defines us in private. If you ask any one of us who are on this Zoom call if we know anyone like Ma Rainey, who could beat your ass on Thursday and be in church on Sunday, who is unapologetic about their value, we grew up with people like that. And certainly, I think that it’s a great start for a narrative, to have a woman who was known for her autonomy, who did not barter for her worth, and the men who were around her.George C. Wolfe said that for Ma Rainey and other Black women, “if you waited around for somebody to acknowledge your power, it was never going to happen.”Credit…David Lee/NetflixViola, talk to me about stepping into the character of Ma Rainey. There is literally stepping into the costume, but there’s also the way she carries herself and the way she interacts with the world around her. Where did you find inspiration, and what did it feel like to become her on set?DAVIS You just have to look at the given circumstances. They said she had makeup that was like grease paint that was melting off her face. In the tent [during her performances], she always looked like she was covered in sweat. She was always wet-looking. She had a mouth full of gold teeth. She was described as not attractive. But because she was such a nurturer, some people were attracted to her.Like everything, I always say that if someone did a story about my life and they went to my husband and daughter, maybe talked to my mom, you’d still only get about 40 percent of me. The other part, you have to rely on your observations in life. You have to in order to get at what is driving that person. What are they living for? That’s when I had to get into my Aunt Joyce and other Black women that I know to fill in the blanks. Who was she in private? Who was she when she was with her women? Even if you didn’t necessarily see it, I had to use that as fuel.Glynn, Colman and Michael, so much of the electricity of the film comes from the interactions between the boys in the band. There’s a kind of jocularity and a camaraderie among you, but there’s also a current of tension and rivalry. Tell me about how you worked together to create that dynamic.TURMAN It starts from a place of really being able to enjoy each other’s company. I think we had a dinner one evening after rehearsal where we all went out after just meeting one another. Our friendship built on that foundation. Just like in real life, the pains and the discomfort come from how well you know one another, because the people who you know are the only people that can really get to you. So we all took great pain in trying to get to know one another within the time frame we had. That way, we were comfortable cussing each other out and giving each other [expletive]. And that took place onscreen and offscreen. [Laughter]MICHAEL POTTS It never stopped. You’re on set with a bunch of men who ain’t got no sense. They ain’t got no damn sense at all. [Laughter]Potts, above, Domingo, below left, and Turman. Along with Boseman, the actors playing the musicians set out to know one another, first over dinner, to get at how relationships in a band work.Credit…David Lee/NetflixCredit…David Lee/NetflixCredit…David Lee/NetflixDOMINGO I remember Chad came in one day. It was early in the rehearsal. He would come in with his hat cocked to the side and the trumpet with him. He comes in a room quietly, very gracefully. And I don’t know if it’s the Cutler in me as well, but I’m like, “Oh, so you just think you ain’t going to speak to nobody when you come in? You walk indoors and don’t talk to nobody?” [Laughter] He said, “Ah, no, no!” We were jocular in that way. But, from then on, he made sure every morning he came and said hello to his brothers and showed respect. Because the feeling was: We can’t be in our own heads. We’ve got to come in and just give over to each other. And that’s what we did.One of the major questions presented by the film is how you come to terms with your place in the world — as an artist and entertainer, but also as a Black person at the bottom of a rigid racial hierarchy. I’m curious if there were elements of the characters’ stories that resonated with any of you in your own artistic and professional journeys.DOMINGO I think that’s why this play is so resonant, especially for Black artists. You’re always trying to make sure your voice is heard, just speaking up and speaking the truth and saying, “No, my place in the world should be elevated because of what I give. I’m just asking for what I deserve, that’s it.” I think [the characters] are asking for that. I know, truly, that I’m asking for it. We’re all asking for it every day. We wake up fighting for it, go to sleep thinking about fighting for it. And we’re fighting for the next generation more than anything, trying to move the dial.DAVIS I find it exhausting. I do. I find it very necessary but exhausting. You’re fighting for your place. You’re fighting to be seen. You’re fighting to be heard. It’s always a fight. And it’s a fight for the simplest things that are given to other people without an exchange.My big thing is when I have to fight for my ability. I can’t stand that. That part of me is the part that went to 10 years of acting school, that did all of that theater, Off Broadway, Broadway, did TV, or whatever. And then you go into a room in Hollywood and you see that has a short shelf life when it’s attached to somebody Black. That’s what pisses me off. I don’t like when people question my ability. But I feel like that’s what all of August’s plays are about — fighting for one’s place in the world. And here’s the other thing: You don’t have to be a king or a queen. You don’t have to be someone up high. He has infused importance into our lives, even if we didn’t make it into a history book.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Black Student Expelled After Mother Complains About 'Fences'

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Race and PolicingFacts on Walter Wallace Jr. CaseFacts on Breonna Taylor CaseFacts on Daniel Prude CaseFacts on George Floyd CaseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Black Student’s Mother Complained About ‘Fences.’ He Was Expelled.A dispute about the reading of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play in an English class escalated at the mostly white Providence Day School in Charlotte, N.C.Faith Fox and her son Jamel.Credit…Travis Dove for The New York TimesDec. 15, 2020, 5:30 a.m. ETWhen the mother of a Black ninth grader at a private school in Charlotte, N.C., learned last month that his English class was going to be studying August Wilson’s “Fences,” an acclaimed play examining racism in 1950s America, she complained to the school.The drama, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 and was adapted into a critically praised film starring Denzel Washington in 2016, is about a Black family and is peppered with racial slurs from the first page.Faith Fox, a lawyer and single mother, said in an interview that she imagined her son’s mostly white class at the Providence Day School reading the dialogue out loud. She said her main concern was that the themes were too mature for the group and would foster stereotypes about Black families.After a round of emails and a meeting with Ms. Fox, the school agreed to an alternate lesson for her son, Jamel, 14. The school also discussed complaints with the parents of four other students. Ms. Fox’s disagreement escalated. She took it to a parents’ Facebook group, and later fired off an email that school officials said was a personal attack on a faculty member.On the day after Thanksgiving, the school notified Ms. Fox that Jamel would no longer be attending the school, the only one he had ever known.His mother called it an expulsion. The school referred to it as “a termination of enrollment” that had to do with the parent, not the student. Either way, what was meant to be a literary lesson in diversity and inclusion had somehow cost a Black 14-year-old his place in an elite private high school.Jamel had recently made the school basketball team and said in an interview that he hoped to graduate as a Providence Day lifer. “I was completely crushed,” he said. “There was no, ‘Please don’t kick me out, I won’t say this, I won’t say that, my mom won’t say this, my mom won’t say that.’” He is making plans to attend public school in January.This year has brought a reckoning with race at many American institutions, including schools. When widespread street protests erupted after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, young people across the country used social media to expose racism at their schools. At Providence Day School, Black students shared stories of discrimination and insensitivity on Instagram, and the school was among many that released statements against racism.“For the Black members of our community, we see you, we hear you and we will act,” the statement said. The school also revised its bias complaint process and created alumni, faculty and student diversity groups.But Ms. Fox said, she felt the school’s treatment of her son proved this was all just lip service.“You can have the important conversations about race and segregation without destroying the confidence and self-esteem of your Black students and the Black population,” Ms. Fox said in an interview. Just over 7 percent of the school’s 1,780 students are Black, about 70 percent are white, and the rest identify as members of other minority groups.A spokeswoman for the school, Leigh Dyer, said last week that officials were “saddened” that Jamel had to leave.“As a school community, we value a diversity of thought and teach students to engage in civil discourse around topics that they might not necessarily agree on,” Ms. Dyer said. “We have the same expectation for the adults in our community.”The Nov. 27 termination letter cited “bullying, harassment and racially discriminatory actions” and “slanderous accusations towards the school itself” by Jamel’s mother.Ms. Dyer provided a statement that said Ms. Fox had made “multiple personal attacks against a person of color in our school administration, causing that person to feel bullied, harassed and unsafe” in the discussions about “Fences.” It also said Ms. Fox had a history of making “toxic” statements about the faculty and others at the school, but did not provide examples.Ms. Fox denied this. “Instead of addressing the issue they’re trying to make me seem like an angry, ranting Black woman,” she said.The New York Times reviewed emails and Facebook messages that Ms. Fox provided and also interviewed two other Providence Day parents who said they had similar concerns about the play and about a video the school used to facilitate conversations about the racial slur. They spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their children.The school had notified parents in early November about the lesson plan in an email. Noting the frequent appearance of the slur in dialogue, it said that students would say “N-word” instead when reading aloud. It said time would be “devoted to considering the word itself and some of its more nuanced aspects of meaning.”The email included a link to a PBS NewsHour interview with Randall Kennedy, a Black professor at Harvard, discussing the history of the slur while using it repeatedly.“It wasn’t something that I thought was appropriate for a roomful of elite, affluent white children,” Ms. Fox said.Her son was also dreading the lesson, which he would have attended via video because of the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s really awkward being in a classroom of majority white students when those words come up,” Jamel said, “because they just look at you and laugh at you, talk about you as soon as you leave class. I can’t really do anything because I’m usually the only Black person there.”Ms. Dyer, the spokeswoman, said the school had introduced the study of “Fences” in 2017 in response to Black parents who wanted more lessons addressing race. In past years, there had been only one complaint about the play, she said.After her son was offered an alternative assignment, Ms. Fox posted about “Fences” to the Facebook group. Other parents said they too had concerns about the play and the PBS video. One comment directed her to an online essay by a student from a prior year who described the “dagger” she felt “cutting deeper and deeper” with each mention of the slur in the video.That’s when Ms. Fox sent an email to the school’s director of equity and inclusion, calling her a “disgrace to the Black community.” Ten days later, Jamel was kicked out of the school. Ms. Fox said that she was surprised but that she does not regret sending the email in the heat of the moment.After Jamel’s expulsion, a letter signed by “concerned Black faculty members” was sent to parents of the four other students who had complained, arguing the literary merits of “Fences.” It said great African-American writers do not create perfect Black characters when they are trying to show the “damaging legacy of racism.”That is a view held by many critics and academics. Sandra G. Shannon, a professor of African-American literature at Howard University and founder of the August Wilson Society, said schools should not shy away from the “harsh realities of the past.”Katie Rieser, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, said “Fences” is taught widely in middle school and high school, but she also urged that it be done so with care.“It’s telling a story about a Black family that, if it’s the only text or it’s one of only a few texts about Black people that students read, might give white students in particular a sense that Black families are all like this Black family,” she said.Ms. Fox said the fight to be heard as a Black parent at a predominantly white private institution had been “exhausting.”She recalled when Jamel came home upset in elementary school after a field trip to a former slave plantation. After she complained, the school ended the annual trips, she said.The other day, she said her son told her he finally understood “why Black Lives Matter is so important and is not just about George Floyd and all of these people dying in the streets, but it also has to do with how we’re treated everywhere else.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Giving Voice’ Review: August Wilson Is Uplifting a New Generation

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Pick‘Giving Voice’ Review: August Wilson Is Uplifting a New GenerationNetflix’s inspirational documentary follows talented theater kids who are devoting themselves to Wilson’s writing.Cody Merridith performs an August Wilson monologue in the documentary “Giving Voice.”Credit…NetflixDec. 11, 2020, 7:00 a.m. ETGiving VoiceNYT Critic’s PickDirected by James D. Stern, Fernando VillenaDocumentaryPG-131h 27mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.The everyday hopes and heartbreaks of African-Americans were dramatized in August Wilson’s 10-play Century Cycle. And every year, since Wilson’s death in 2005, thousands of students from 12 different cities vie for the chance to perform a monologue from one of his plays for the competition’s final round on Broadway. James D. Stern and Fernando Villena’s uplifting documentary “Giving Voice” (streaming on Netflix) further explores this competition and explains how the playwright’s legacy is inspiring a new generation.Interviews with the actors Viola Davis, who is one of the film’s executive producers, Denzel Washington and Stephen McKinley Henderson (all from the film adaptation of Wilson’s “Fences”) are interspersed between segments that follow teenagers advancing through the 2018 iteration of the competition.[embedded content]This is a film that worships the ways acting can instill determination in young people. Gerardo Navarro, from South Central Los Angeles, says he was unaware a space for Latinx actors existed in theater, but feels seen by Wilson’s work. Callie Holley, hailing from Houston, sees her mother, who weathered cancer and the 2008 financial crisis, in the character of Berniece from “The Piano Lesson.” And the Chicago high schooler Cody Merridith, who performs from “King Hedley II,” innately feels the hurt present in Wilson’s work. Not only does Cody come from the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, where poverty is a daily struggle for many of its residents, but also his school is without an arts program of any kind.In addition to hearing themselves in the voices of these characters, the kids hear their aunts, uncles, grandparents and neighbors, too. They hear the timeless struggle of Black America reaching across the generations. They heave the emotional weight of Ma Rainey, Cutler and Hedley with a maturity far beyond their years and come out empowered. And in capturing these moments, “Giving Voice” becomes as inspirational as Wilson’s words, as fulfilling as each teen’s declaration of self-worth.Giving VoiceRated PG-13 for the power of theater. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      August Wilson, American Bard

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesTo accompany this essay, the Baltimore-based artist Jerrell Gibbs painted “Portrait of August Wilson” (2020), exclusively for T.Credit…Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim. Photo by Joseph HydeSkip to contentSkip to site indexArts and LettersAugust Wilson, American BardPerhaps no playwright has asserted the richness and complexity of everyday Black lives and language so deeply. Now, two screen projects affirm his legacy for new audiences.To accompany this essay, the Baltimore-based artist Jerrell Gibbs painted “Portrait of August Wilson” (2020), exclusively for T.Credit…Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim. Photo by Joseph HydeSupported byContinue reading the main storyBy More