Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Act I

Reading Check

1. Sturdyvant’s attitude toward Ma Rainey is exasperated and critical. (Act I)

2. Levee plans to sell his original songs to Sturdyvant. (Act I)

3. Levee and the others argue over which version of the song they should rehearse. (Act I)

4. Levee says Toledo’s brogans make him look like a sharecropper. (Act I)

5. Toledo can read. (Act I)

6. Levee believes God went to sleep. (Act I)

7. Levee identifies with the Devil. (Act I)

8. Cutler accuses Levee of blasphemy. (Act I)

9. Ma is late to the recording session. (Act I)

10. Ma does not like Levee’s version of “Black Bottom.” (Act I)

Short Answer

1. When Levee calls the band’s music “jug-band,” he means it is primitive or unskilled. (Act I)

2. Toledo means Slow Drag is calling upon his history with Cutler to convince him to share the reefer. To call Slow Drag “African” is to suggest a disconnection between African and African American men. (Act I)

3. Toledo says that when Black men look to white men for approval, Black men will never find out who they really are.