Both Levee News Today

Dec. 17, 2020 4:25 pm ET Most of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” a powerful, ultimately shattering screen version of the 1982 August Wilson play, takes place on a single afternoon in 1927, in a seedy Chicago studio where the great blues singer of the title has come to make a record. The Netflix film doesn’t pretend to the broad physical scope of a commercial movie and doesn’t need to. Wilson’s words dictate the production’s form, eloquent words and electri...