Gertrude “Ma” Rainey was one of the earliest known professional blues singers in America. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson imagined Rainey doing battle with a white record producer and wrote “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

The play is part of Wilson’s 10-play series, “The Pittsburgh Cycle,” about the African-American experience. The Actors’ Group made a commitment in 2003 to do all 10 plays, and with a uniformly talented cast and excellent direction by Lillian Jones, TAG’s production of “Ma Rainey” is so good that it feels as though TAG saved the best for last. If you only have time to see one stage show in Honolulu this month, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is the one to see.

The year is 1927. Four of Rainey’s musicians — Cutler, Slow Drag, Toledo and Levee — are killing time in the recording studio waiting for her to show up and record some new songs. 

As they wait, the men talk about women, religion, music, the racism they’ve experienced in random encounters with white people, what it means to be black, and the extent to which any of them may be trying to be an “imitation white man.”

Their stories remind us that no matter how bad things are for African-Americans today, they were much worse in the 1920s. They also remind us of an ugly side of American history that most people of other races know nothing about.

Curtis Duncan (Toledo), appearing in his sixth Wilson play at TAG, is a commanding presence as always. His delivery of Toledo’s impassioned, erudite monologues makes each of them riveting theater. Jason Quinn plays Levee as insufferably arrogant and abrasive, and then turns everything around with two emotionally wrenching scenes that reveal why Levee will never be “spooked up by a white man.”

Michael Edwards (Cutler) is memorable in his TAG debut, his expressive features conveying a multitude of emotions even when he is silent. Marc Cooper (Slow Drag) brings subtle shadings of comedy to the quartet. There probably weren’t many black musicians with beards in 1927, but Cooper’s beard and elaborately styled hair give him a sense of “otherness” that works well in character.

Ma Rainey eventually arrives with her latest girlfriend, her young nephew and a Chicago policeman who wants to arrest all three of them after a minor traffic accident on the way to the studio. Rainey’s manager pays off the cop but his problems with the recording session are just beginning.

Rainey doesn’t want to do the “modern” arrangements the producer wants her to do. She also insists her nephew have a featured vocal part on the record even though the boy has a significant stutter. Then, just when the kid gets through his part without stuttering, there are problems with the recording equipment and they have to do it over. 

Micki Fine is an imperious presence as Rainey. Katrina McIntosh (Dussie Mae) is appropriately distracting as the “gal” in a tight yellow dress who is happy to accept gifts from Rainey but appears open to other offers. Kaleb Fitzsimmons (Sylvester)?stutters convincingly. He also does an effective job of silently projecting attitude whenever one of Sylvester’s critics gets shot down.