A terrific adaption of the August Wilson play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

 The George C. Wolfe (dir.)/Ruben Santiago-Hudson (screenplay) streaming v. of the August Wilson play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1982) is a terrifically engaging and highly dramatic show; I never saw the original play so I'm not sure how much this adaptation amended the original - aside from the obvious "opening up" by having the show open w/ Ma (Viola Davis) performing before an all-black audience in the deep South (1927) before the shift to Chicago where Ma is set for a recording session that will, all hope, introduce her work a more profitable, i.e., a white audience. Many things go wrong during this recording session, most of the because of Ma's irascible and irrational diva-behavior (she's a proud woman and steps warily into this new phase, but in the process she's nasty to just about everyone, often w/ good reason, as it's clear the two white characters - her agent and the recording-studio honcho - will exploit her work in any way that they can). Davis is great in the part, but the show-stealer is Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer at 43 shortly after completing this project. Boseman, as a (relatively) young sideman in the band has some of the most powerful scenes you'll ever see in a stage (or film for that matter) production, providing throughout the humor, the drama, and the danger, as he goes through a range of emotions in second, from flippant to furious to maniacal in a moment. The film itself is a sad but all so true expose of the racism and exploitation in the early recording industry; it's scary at times - but not without its self-deprecatory humor, as the characters interact and develop over the course of one day's action.