Tambo and Bones at Playwrights Horizons

[Synecdoche2]

Posted: 1/20/22 at 12:38pm

Has anybody seen this yet? This is the first of two Dave Harris plays in New York this spring. Very curious to know how this is. And does anybody know the runtime? I heard it's in three acts.

Updated On: 1/20/22 at 12:38 PM

[JBroadway]

Posted: 1/20/22 at 12:56pm

I saw it last night.

It was a WILD experience, on multiple levels. The show is fun, whacky, bizarre, bold, absurd, hilarious, disturbing, inventive. It's like a mix between The Scottsboro Boys, Waiting For Godot, Fairview, and Endlings. But also totally its own thing. It's an extremely meta, self-aware exploration of Black art, and how it toes the line between trauma p*rn, capitalism, and activism. The playwright's essay in the program is also fascinating. 

But this will NOT be for everyone - as evidenced by an audience member who was so irate after the performance that he stormed out of the theatre in a rage, knocking over tables and chairs, and a potted plant outside the theatre!!!!!!!

But I thought it was great. And the friend I saw it with loved it even more than I did. It's only January, and I already think it would be a solid candidate for the Pulitzer. But I'm guessing many people will really not like it. I thought it could use some tightening. There was a little bit of "throw everything to the wall and see what sticks," which I think could be more fine-tuned. 

The performance stopped due to a technical difficulty 5 minutes into the show, and rather than pick up where they left off, they started the show over from the beginning - which I've never seen before. There's some audience interaction I the first few minutes of the play, so having it done a 2nd time had a TOTALLY different energy to it. The audience was having a ton of fun, and so were the actors.

Hard to gage the actual runtime because of the interruption, but it was listed as 90 minutes, and I believe that was about right. But yes, it's structured into 3 acts. 

Updated On: 1/27/22 at 12:56 PM

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 1/20/22 at 4:17pm

I can not wait to see this, Dave Harris is going to be a BIG deal

[Synecdoche2]

Posted: 1/20/22 at 4:56pm

BoringBoredBoard40 said: "I can not wait to see this, Dave Harris is going to be a BIG deal"

Totally agreed. I have to wonder if a very bold theatre will eventually produce White History. Fingers crossed. JBroadway, you inspired me to get a last minute ticket for tonight. I'll report back.

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 1/20/22 at 5:41pm

His tweet about the white man going crazy afterward is killing me. Can't wait to see it next week!

[Synecdoche2]

Posted: 1/20/22 at 10:15pm

That was certainly something! Dave Harris is a major new talent, but still a very young playwright, and I think both are evident in this production. JBroadway, I agree with your comparisons to Fairview and Endlings, but I think this attempts to take those same ideas a step further in its commentary about performance and capitalism. It's not always successful, but it's always interesting. In particular, the rap lyrics are great and the relationship the play has to the (old, white) audience at Playwrights Horizons was pretty exciting. I think the last 2 minutes are going to be very controversial, but I like when an author critiques himself. Love it or hate it, you're gonna want to see it.

[BIG BALONEY]

Posted: 1/21/22 at 10:40pm

Friends went tonight and were not to happy. Don't expect to much in this ranting play with blinding lights shinning into the audiences eyes. It was 90 minutes that never got better. 

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 1/21/22 at 10:52pm

BIG BALONEY said: "Friends went tonight and were not to happy. Don't expect to much in this ranting play with blinding lights shinning into the audiences eyes. It was 90 minutes that never got better."

Cool. Your friends sound old and white. 

[JBroadway]

Posted: 1/21/22 at 11:41pm

Glad you appreciated it, Synecdoche! 

It is worth noting: there is one portion of the performance in particular (the middle act) where there are lights shined in the audiences faces, and during one transitional sequence, the lights do pulse on and off to the rhythm of a heartbeat. I thought it was cool, but I can understand some finding it unpleasant, especially worth noting for those with photosensitivity issues. 

[SouthernCakes]

Posted: 1/22/22 at 12:09am

Like what’s the actual plot? What’s the design? What’s the direction? 

[JBroadway]

Posted: 1/22/22 at 9:06am

SouthernCakes said: "Like what’s the actual plot? What’s the design? What’s the direction?"

 

It's the kind of show where it's best to go in blind about this kind of stuff. But if you're very curious: 

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

It follows the same 2 titular characters over the course of 3 acts. In the 1st act, they're minstrel show characters who become self-aware, and decide to make money for themselves. So in the 2nd act, they're hip-hip superstars, but they get swept up in the gaudy lifestyle (though one of them is more activism-minded, while the other is more revenue-minded). They begin to get involved in some questionable enterprises. And.....I wont spoil the 3rd act. 

But even that description doesn't really do justice to the play. It's very self-aware, very meta, with no 4th wall. And it's much more complicated than the summary above reflects. 

The design changes for each act, as each one has a totally different setting. But the most striking design is in the 1st act - with a kind of sunny, grassy meadow that's deliberately made to look fake and cartoonish. 

The direction, like the play, is kind of absurdist and off-the-wall. There's a lot of humor, and the actors have a crystal-clear sense of the hyper-specific tone. It's not really a director-driven show, but the direction is right in step with the bizarre play. 

Updated On: 1/22/22 at 09:06 AM

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/22/22 at 10:37pm

This wild and crazy and just up my alley. It sounds kind of like Bootycandy that I loved. 

[BIG BALONEY]

Posted: 1/23/22 at 8:41am

Bootycandy was fun this ain't.

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 1/26/22 at 12:11am

This needs a bit of tightning (those transitions feel like an eternity) but I loved every minute, what an amazing FU to the Playwrights subscribers (and CTG where it is being produced later this year), this is going to be a wildly divisive play but I applaude how ballsy and adventurious it was, absolutely agree its got shades of Robert O'Hara and also Brendon Jacob Jenkins, its almost like a 2022 stage version of "a modest proposal"

i think the less you know going in the better

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 1/26/22 at 9:15am

Why do some people think that simply writing “spoiler” and then spoiling something on here is OK? If you don’t know how to use the spoiler box, then please don’t type it. I wasn’t planning to see the show, but, if I was, I would be pissed to have seen this.

Updated On: 1/26/22 at 09:15 AM

[OffOnBwayHi]

Posted: 2/8/22 at 10:00am

Any new thoughts about this? The reviews came out and seem to be mostly negative, even, surprisingly, from the Black critic at the Times, who I tend to agree with.

I hear the show is a try-hard, Fairview wannabe. How true is this? I’m not a fan of theater breaking the fourth wall and harassing folks unless it does it with brains and care. The reviews make me think this doesn’t. (Black No More is another poor example.)

[AntV]

Posted: 2/14/22 at 2:29am

Was this changed a lot during previews? Early show score reviews talk about it being very disturbing but newer reviews don't. Is it still disturbing?

[UncleCharlie]

Posted: 2/14/22 at 5:40am

I saw the last preview last Sunday night prior to its opening. There were some poignant observations and some clever moments but the whole thing just felt very disjointed and it didn't seem to cover much new ground in the discussion of race relations that hasn't already been covered numerous times before. It felt as if it just tried to breathe new life into the discussion with shock value and gimmicks than by encouraging me to look at something in a new way I hadn't thought of before. I wasn't shocked or offended or bothered by any of it including the lights. I just felt it was not a particularly compelling piece of theater.

[Skip23]

Posted: 2/27/22 at 12:45am

Uh, what was this aboot?

 

 

[ardiem]

Posted: 2/27/22 at 7:24pm

OffOnBwayHi said: "Any new thoughts about this? The reviews came out and seem to be mostly negative, even, surprisingly, from the Black critic at the Times, who I tend to agree with.

I hear the show is a try-hard, Fairview wannabe. How true is this? I’m not a fan of theater breaking the fourth wall and harassing folks unless it does it with brains and care. The reviews make me think this doesn’t. (Black No More is another poor example.)"

I saw this a few weeks ago and agree with what you've heard - intentionally or not, it felt very derivative of Pass Over - particularly the first act - and Fairview (which I LOVED). The elements that broke the fourth wall reminded me more of getting ribbed at a comedy club and lacked the nuance and purpose of what Fairview did. Like UncleCharlie, I wasn't really shocked by it, and unfortunately the play seemed to bank on that shock value as its contribution to the dialog on race. On another note, the sound mixing when I saw it wasn't ideal - I had a really tough time making out chunks of Act 2.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 2/28/22 at 11:15am

ardiem said: "intentionally or not, it felt very derivative of Pass Over"
 
It's funny you say that, because when I saw Pass Over in 2018, I called it derivative of Suzan-Lori Parks plays like Topdog/Underdog and Father Comes Home. Not to mention Pass Over deliberately homages Waiting For Godot, and I think there’s some of that in Tambo & Bones as well. 

But I actually changed my mind about Pass Over – it has clear influences, but so everything. What’s important is how artists use their influences to do their own thing. And I’d argue both plays achieve that.

Obviously your criticisms are valid, and it’s fine if you didn’t think T&B stood out enough. But I thought it was amusing/ironic that you called T&B derivative of a play that I accused on being derivative when I first saw it. 

I remember when Tamilla Woodard was on the “Three on the Aisle” podcast, Elizabeth Vincentelli asked her about the trend of Black playwrights creating some of the most innovative uses of form, and Woodward said something to the effect of: 

(heavily paraphrased) Black artists are constantly having to communicate the same fundamental ideas; that Black people are human and deserve respect, and shedding light on the various forms of system racism. But these problems persist, with no systemic change, so there’s an impulse to keep re-iterating it from new angles. As a result, we end up seeing an emphasis on HOW these stories are told. Which is partly why we see a trend of Black playwrights emphasizing form / blending forms, time periods, structures, tones, etc. 

Because this work is so bold and distinct, there’s an impulse to compare the playwrights to each other, because many of them are working from a storytelling approach that’s broadly similar in their boldness, and their use of form. But ultimately each play is doing its own thing. Pass Over is about police violence, Fairview is about depictions of Black people in media, and Tambo & Bones is about how Black artists participate in capitalism, etc. Not to mention the specific “cocktail” of form-bending varies between these plays. 

Updated On: 2/28/22 at 11:15 AM