Review: TAMBO & BONES at Spooky Action Theater

With TAMBO & BONES, Spooky Action Theatre takes on a satirical and biting piece that refuses to play by the rules, whether it be of narrative, of genre, or of comfort. What starts as a minstrel show quickly mutates into a centuries-spanning interrogation of race, capitalism, and the hunger for autonomy, all filtered through Dave Harris’s sharp, unruly script. It’s a piece that demands attention by provocation rather than clarity, and this production leans fully into that challenge.

In part one of a two-act, three-part tale, Tambo and Bones are players in a minstrel show some time in America’s troubled and racist past. An art form that relied on Black stereotypes and harmful caricatures, it’s an unsettling start to find ourselves in. Deimoni Brewington as Tambo pantomimes a scene in a quiet, idyllic pasture, where he intends to take a rest under a shady tree. However, his respite is interrupted by the clumsy and spastic energy of Bones, played by Jeremy Keith Hunter, who disrupts this picture-perfect afternoon.

Bones (Jeremy Keith Hunter) breaks the fourth wall, asking for quarters so he can take care of his son… or so we’re told. After some quick banter, we learn that the two players in the show have their own consciousness, meaning they can question their situation and reckon with their dissatisfaction. Stepping out of the world of the minstrel show, we find that the pair comes to desire far more than just quarters for their performance - they desire freedom from this situation. Freedom from the minstrel show, freedom from being seen as less than a real person (a recurring theme throughout), and freedom from conforming to rules that always keep people like them, Black people, down. 

The play’s first of three sections uses the minstrel show format and style as a powerful backdrop to not only remind the audience of an incredibly harmful past but also to highlight the contrast between the desires of the players and the tropes and stereotypes that made black performers a “success” in minstrel shows. While the performers are entertaining white audiences, they’re forced to give up their humanity in the process, and this permeates the entire first section.

In part two, our minstrel players have arrived in what is meant to be the present day, and now they’re a successful rap duo named Tambo & Bones. There’s more meditation on the state of black people in America, especially leaning into the economic disparities when compared to white households. This section also features one of the night’s more powerful moments with a moving and strong rap performance by Tambo. 

Still, the pair isn’t quite getting what they want and can’t quite articulate it either. They’ve got plenty of quarters now, and then some, and a rap career with plenty of notoriety and fame, and yet, Bones still remarks, “You can’t change the world with words.” Something is missing, and Tambo and Bones still feel yoked by their situation. They’re successful rappers, but is this freedom? Do they actually have free will as “real” people, or are they simply playing a character that fits into someone else’s rules? 

In the play’s third section, which makes up all of Act II, the pair have rocketed forward several hundred years into the future. The Constitution is now a 600-year-old document some time in the late 2300s. Tambo and Bones are here on a historic day of remembrance to tell an oral history of their people, but this time, they rely on human-like robots to do the storytelling. For those feeling adversarial about the dangers of AI, this part is for you. 

Their simple desire for quarters at the beginning of the show has escalated over time into something nefarious and has led them down a path of destruction. Attempting to adapt to the system that has oppressed them, they’ve become very rich and powerful off the exact system they once bemoaned. Still, the pair comes back to the central question despite all this: “Am I a real person?” Have all their successes and rungs they’ve climbed on the proverbial ladder of life led them to self-actualization, or have they mistakenly gotten even farther from it? It’s a remarkable question to reflect on and a challenge to the audience. 

There’s no clear ending here and no definitive stopping point, but rather a feeling of incompleteness as the lights come up at the show’s conclusion. It’s the most “real” point of the night, as life rarely allows us the luxury of tidy conclusions with all the answers to our questions. 

Playwright Dave Harris creates a highly imaginative piece with TAMBO & BONES, and it fits nicely into Spooky Action’s Counternarratives season, the theme for the company’s 21st season. TAMBO & BONES inserts the characters (and the audience) into the belly of the beast of the Black experience in America and refuses to provide clear answers. The Black experience in America is not clean, tidy, or clear. It’s ugly and messy, and there’s no roadmap to course correct or erase the past’s influence on the modern day. The play’s structure mirrors this, as it doesn’t follow traditional storytelling conventions and concludes abruptly. 

As Artistic Director Elizabeth Dinkova says in her program note, “the show wrestles with the tough choice of whether to adapt and succeed in a broken system or dismantle it and venture into uncharted territory.” Tambo & Bones try both avenues throughout the three sections, and the path is inevitably fraught regardless of what they choose. That’s perhaps at the heart of what Harris is trying to say with this piece, and it resonates well. 

Though Harris’s script gives a lot to work with, it also asks a lot of the two main players, Tambo & Bones. It requires two performers who can give a tour de force of acting. Though there are moments where it all comes together, Deimoni Brewington (Tambo) and Jeremy Keith Hunter (Bones) ultimately struggle to hit the ceiling of where this piece could be. 

Brewington is certainly strongest in the play’s first section when he can rely on his physical comedy chops, but is inconsistent when asked to dive deeper into the character’s psyche in the second act. Hunter, equally as excellent in the show’s first section, struggles to fully explore the depth required later as well. The piece requires such a wide range of skills and, therefore, inadvertently exposes weaknesses in both performances at various moments. Still, the script leaves you with a lot to chew on as you make your way home, and you’ll more than likely be sitting with your own questions rather than whatever shortcomings you felt were present in the performances. 

To steer this proverbial ship, Spooky Action made a great decision by bringing in an artist who DC audiences should know by now, Ashleigh King. A director who rarely misses, King is given a lot to work with here, and she delivers. Spooky Action’s intimate space gives you no choice but to confront the piece head-on, and King takes advantage of this, especially in the third section, where the playing space quite literally comes out into the front row. I should take this opportunity to compliment Sarah Beth Hall’s scenic design, which deserves as much praise for its flexibility as it does for its great aesthetics. 

As is true of Hall’s work, King’s direction is expertly supported by a host of technicians and creatives who bring the piece to life. Rukiya Henry-Fields’s costume design is exquisite, especially in the show’s first section where the characters don turn of the 20th century dress. As the piece spends time in the past, present, and future, it’s a test not only for the performers but for the Costume Designer as well.

This technical praise should also extend to Emmanuel Garcia-Castro and Luis Garcia as well, who both contributed to the play’s lighting design. Garcia is additionally credited with projection design. As is true of so much of this production, TAMBO & BONES asks its designers for a large range of output, and each creative is ready to deliver with skill.

TAMBO & BONES is more than a challenging piece of theatre. It breaks convention in nearly every way imaginable and asks you to put your trust in Harris’s piece. It's bumpy along the way, and there are times you may become disoriented, but that’s the truth of life being reflected to you. As the play progresses from past to future, we seem to get more and more distant from what feels like reality. It works quite well, though it’s disorienting. The performances of Brewington and Hunter are uneven yet powerful, but it’s the show’s technical elements and writing that truly shine. If you’re looking for a play that contains tidy answers to straightforward questions, this is not the piece for you. I’m still sitting with the thought that this is perhaps the entire point.

TAMBO & BONES stars Deimoni Brewington as Tambo and Jeremy Keith Hunter as Bones. Additional members of the cast include Clint Blakely (X-Bot 1), Robert Bowen Smith (X-Bot 2), Everett Judd (Tambo understudy), and Jaden Michael Madgett (Bones understudy - performing 2/22 and 3/1). 

Members of the creative team include: Ashleigh King (Director), Sarah Beth Hall (Scenic Design), Emmanuel Garcia-Castro (Lighting Design), Rukiya Henry-Fields (Costume Design), navi (Sound Design & Composition), Robert Bowen Smith (Fight Choreographer), Maria Mills (Production Stage Manager), Jaden Michael Madgett (Assistant Stage Manager), and Everett Judd (Assistant Director). 

TAMBO & BONES runs from now until March 7 at DC’s Spooky Action Theater. The show runs approximately 2 hours with one intermission. Please note this play contains strong language and racial slurs.

Photo Credit: Deimoni Brewington (Tambo) & Jeremy Keith Hunter (Bones)