Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a very intriguing play. I think it really represents the true form of Black American history. This play creates an aura of liveliness and realism. Actually, just by reading two of August Wilson's plays, I realize that most of his plays uses a great deal of everyday language, something that is easy to read and comprehend because it is modernly adapted. Compared with his other play, The Piano Lesson, which is about a disorganized family and its heirloom - I think that Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is more realistic. In The Piano Lesson, somehow I sometimes get confuse and wonder why this or that happened, and to be frank, it's much more boring. However, in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, there was less misunderstanding and more interesting scripts, because the story line corresponds so much to our social lives today.
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is about four men and a blues singer lady during the late 1920's. They are in a recording studio having continuously common arguments - a good enclosure in the play that makes it seems all the more realistic. Their arguments can make a reader start thinking about situations they have had before with their friends or family. It's something a person can sit, read, nod their heads and laugh about because it's so practical. This is a definitely noticeable similarity of the two plays, although it's much more obvious in The Piano Lesson. The differences between the two plays are August Wilson's lack of supernatural existence in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and its setting or time periods. I didn't really notice any other major differences, though.
In my opinion, the play would've been quite a dread to read, had it not been for August Wilson's exciting way of scripting his speech. The setting was limited to only two locations, the band room and the recording studio. Insufficient narration was provided throughout the play; however, a reader can still completely understand the situation just by reading the character scripts.
