Exception to the Rule at Roundabout

[annang]

Posted: 5/8/22 at 1:48am

Has anyone seen this one yet? I'm looking at tickets for next weekend. I loved Dave Harris's last play, so I'm hoping this one will be just as good.

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 5/11/22 at 12:52pm

Rather than start a new thread, I figured I'd piggyback off this one to say that I'm selling a $10 Access10 ticket for the other new Off-Broadway Roundabout show, ...what the end will be, for this Friday 5/12 at 8 p.m. The seat is orchestra O 2, and I have the PDF to forward. Let me know if interested.

[Synecdoche2]

Posted: 5/14/22 at 4:07pm

Thought this was excellent. A great cast in a fun, thoughtful play. I think most will agree it's superior to Harris' Tambo and Bones and proves him as a talent to watch. Would recommend this to pretty much anybody.

The only problem is that Roundabout has stuck it in their uncomfortable black box when it really deserves to be in a much larger space. My guess (and hope) is that tons of regional theatres and colleges will do this next season. I hope it can find the audience it "deserves".

Updated On: 5/14/22 at 04:07 PM

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 5/14/22 at 5:53pm

It’s basically an African American Breakfast Club with a slightly surreal/supernatural element thrown in for some reason, and then it turns into a big lecture that I could have lived without. The actors are all great, but I really didn’t care for this at all, and yes, that stuffy black box space with all the chairs crammed together on top of each other is awful. The sight lines are terrible in general unless you sit in the front row, and if you do, you have to wear an N-95 mask that Roundabout supplies to you. 

[Synecdoche2]

Posted: 5/14/22 at 6:14pm

Surely the "lecture" at the end is ironic, no? To me the entire play hinged on the dramatic irony (and tragedy) of believing yourself an "Exception to the Rule".

[YalePlaywrightsWilding]

Posted: 5/19/22 at 10:01am

Matt Rogers misses the point entirely.

This, I feel, is Dave’s masterpiece. The poetic dialogue, the structure, the pacing, the multi-layered meanings. Brain scans show that white people lack empathy for black people. Herein lies the great contradiction because modern-day theatre is meant to serve as an engine of empathy, a means to understand the lives of others. In response to this, Dave is playing with form in addition to varying levels of incrimination, to jolt the audience out of its foolish attitudes toward black people.

‪While about prison culture in school systems, a major theme is also internalized racism. In their final scene, the “bad kid” brings up the fact that they are all descendants of chattel slavery. He is the one who uses the n-word the most throughout the play. He also, ironically, is one of the biggest adherents to the rules. Black people, even black adults, learn to navigate life with more rules imposed upon them than do whites.

Erika’s monologue at the end, about making love to “a black boy” is clearly about internalized racism. Erika seems clueless because it is her forced naïveté as escapism from being labeled a “black” girl. I actually relate to Erika because, hating all the negative associations with blackness and learning to associate academic achievement with whiteness, I too intentionally acted kind of dumb to black culture growing up. It’s clear that, in this world as it is in the outside world, white supremacy is the rule of the day.

I did not receive this play as a “thriller” as someone described it, but as theatre. In his statement for Tambo and Bones, Dave stated that the beauty of theatre is that you know it is fake, and there is freedom in that.

The fact that the very grown, graduate-school educated and accomplished black actors are playing these kids did not elude me. Also, as with Tambo and Bones, Dave used the structure of absurdist theatre in Waiting for Godot.

I love how Dave both indulges and indicts the audience in his plays. While this may, on a surface level, be “documentary theatre”, the theatrical experience and the audience’s preconceptions about these characters are also very present in the play.

Leaving the theatre, I felt the same shame I felt after witnessing the black/white doll experiment. I questioned a lot of the popular rhetoric surrounding the need for zero-tolerance school policies, how these infractions are handled in predominantly white schools, and how true racial equity in the school system would impact the psychological development of black kids.

Updated On: 5/19/22 at 10:01 AM

[thedrybandit]

Posted: 5/19/22 at 12:19pm

YalePlaywrightsWilding said: "Matt Rogers misses the point entirely. This, I feel, is Dave’s masterpiece."

Hi, Dave.

[YalePlaywrightsWilding]

Posted: 5/19/22 at 12:36pm

thedrybandit said: "YalePlaywrightsWilding said: "Matt Rogers misses the point entirely. This, I feel, is Dave’s masterpiece."

Hi, Dave."

Haha, I wish I was as brilliant and well-connected as Dave.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/19/22 at 10:46pm

For what it's worth, looking at the pictures I would not have guessed this was in the smaller basement theater. The set looks pretty tall in those photos. 

[OffOnBwayHi]

Posted: 5/26/22 at 7:28am

I wish this took the swings it continuously hinted toward. It had potential but never quite lived up to it.

It thinks it’s smarter and deeper than it really is. And if the show actually is that, it doesn’t allow the audience to connect to its brains and heart. Highfalutin theater is a no-no in 2022 imho, no matter how it’s packaged.

Excellent cast though.

[YalePlaywrightsWilding]

Posted: 5/31/22 at 6:47pm

Interesting perspective. I'm curious if you have an example of a show that tackles the issue of internalized racism and conditioned defeat the way that Dave does. I don't think there are any other works that tackle, head-on, contemporary social dynamics around racial hierarchy/dominance.

I find it interesting that Tambo and Bones is receiving far more acclaim (and is currently being more widely produced) than Exception to the Rule. Tambo is the weaker play, in my opinion. I believe Dave has the same opinion. From his artist statement in the Tambo and Bones playbill: "It's quite easy to write poorly and have a white person call you powerful. Important. Necessary. Raw. Vital." While social commentary, it is also a theatrical piece that centers black people as clowns. 

However, Dave's full-time living depends on the magnanimity of white institutions. Which is why I observe that he both indulges and indicts, but his indulgence of white institutions and audiences is what keeps him working. Even POC reviewers did not pick up on Dave's direct address to social dynamics reinforcing internalized racism, even though they were clear as day in the script. The show is "about school policing and prison culture", "a 'Foucauldian' analysis of 'communities learning to police themselves'", "not a problem play", "about surviving institutions not built for you" (what does that even mean, for schools to 'not be built for black children', isn't that playing into white supremacist views that those expressing this view purportedly reject), "or is just a "black Breakfast Club" (despite Dave having never watched that movie). Not one picked up on Dave's strategic use of the n-word as a marker of internalized racism, which is telling because racially denigrating language has become so normalized, accepted, and expected in black art, that it barely ever elicits commentary. Dave speaks to the blindspots but knows that most everyone is committed to not knowing (or pretending to not know) they exist.

The crescendo stand-off between Dasani and her limited reimagination of Dr. King's speech and Dayrin's declaration of "We're not free!" symbolizes the central premise of the play. Erika's almost cartoonish reference to "a black boy" as a thing to despise, I believe, is meant to make the central premise of institutional reinforcement of white supremacy and internalized racism quite obvious. Even with Dave's loudspeaker writing style, which I believe he used intentionally, people pretend to not hear. This is Dave's genius, because he is challenging core beliefs held by the very white institutions and audiences who produce and watch his work. A more relevant challenge to contemporary audiences than any dated works by Kander and Ebb or Bertold Brecht, which, when produced today, people love to pretend are still positively challenging any contemporary beliefs.

As both Tambo and Bones and Exception to the Rule reference Waiting for Godot, one wonders about Dave's obsession with that play. I believe Dave is both a pessimist and an optimist. The pessimism found in referencing Beckett harkens to Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well, which discusses the permanence of racism and Americans' commitment to maintaining the racial caste system.

If you think it is flawed, that is fine. I personally do not. But there are a lot of masterpieces in the American canon that are equally as flawed, but have still come to be viewed as the masterpieces they are. Dave is doing something powerfully unique that is not currently being done on the American stage, and I think he deserves our full support. Sad to say, even in 2022, he is ahead of his time.

This is an excellent interview between three social commentators (https://youtu.be/4BtD_OfEITI, 1:02:00 to 1:10:00 is particularly relevant to the surface-level theme of Exception To The Rule) on the imperatives and restraints of black artists, many of the dynamics Dave comments on in his work and which, ultimately, I think he will succumb to. But on the ascent, we are definitely still getting some incisive and masterful works. Dave knows he's not free, but he will push the limits of freedom as much as he can, in edgy ways that are pushing the boundaries ever slightly forward toward true freedom.

OffOnBwayHi said: "I wish this took the swings it continuously hinted toward. It had potential but never quite lived up to it.

It thinks it’s smarter and deeper than it really is. And if the show actually is that, it doesn’t allow the audience to connect to its brains and heart. Highfalutin theater is a no-no in 2022 imho, no matter how it’s packaged.

Excellent cast though."

 

Updated On: 5/31/22 at 06:47 PM

[raddersons]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 11:30am

Anyone else struggling to buy tickets to this? Either the website is glitching or it's totally sold out.

[YalePlaywrightsWilding]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 11:43am

Tonight is sold out, but there are definitely performances with seats available. I can check a specific date for you if you'd like. DM me so we can discuss this further and don't have to discuss on the message board. Hoping the run sells out soon though!

Updated On: 6/2/22 at 11:43 AM

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 5:57pm

YalePlaywrightsWilding said: "Tonight is sold out, but there are definitely performances with seats available. I can check a specific date for you if you'd like. DM me so we can discuss this further and don't have to discuss on the message board. Hoping the run sells out soon though!"

Sounds like you must be the playwright or someone very closely connected with him, based on your offer to help with tickets and your several lengthy diatribes above. 

[JBroadway]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 6:58pm

I thought this was a strong piece; simpler than Tambo and Bones, but maybe more well-crafted. overall though I do think Tambo and Bones was a more compelling theatrical experience, and more memorable. But this play also makes use of its form in really smart way, even if it’s not breaking dramaturgical molds as obviously as Tambo and Bones did. 
 

(LIGHT SPOILER, I GUESS?) 

I was glad that the play took a more surreal turn, because you could tell Harris was setting the stage for it (the absurd, and vaguely dystopian PA announcements), but I was concerned that it wouldn’t actually go any further than established premise. I’m glad it did, but even by the end I wish Harris had leaned further into the satire/surrealism/dystopia/whatever you want to call it. 

For instance, even when the play takes a weirder turn, Harris continues trying to provide in-world explanations for everything going on. Whereas I think he could have leaned further into the extremity of it, and in doing so, trust the audience to take the leap, and understand that it wasn’t all literal. 
 

But overall, I thought this was quite strong, and an impressive co-premiere for Harris with Tambo and Bones. 

[JBroadway]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 7:32pm

Matt Rogers said: "YSounds like you must be the playwright or someone very closely connected with him, based on your offer to help with tickets and your several lengthy diatribes above."


I think it’s safe to assume they have some connection through Yale, though this user’s analysis has been pretty insightful and thoughtful regardless of bias.

I don’t think the Playwright would be so obvious without being upfront about it. 

[YalePlaywrightsWilding]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 9:58pm

Again, I wish I were! I'm just a very enthusiastic fan of Dave's work, because it is so unlike anything else I've seen on stage! My introduction to his work was through PH and Roundabout, I wasn't even at Yale when he was producing his student work! I also love his work because he is addressing the issue of anti-black racism in such unique and innovative ways. I honestly want this production to receive a pro-shot, would be a dream for Spike Lee to see it and film it!

Matt Rogers said: "YalePlaywrightsWilding said: "Tonight is sold out, but there are definitely performances with seats available. I can check a specific date for you if you'd like. DM me so we can discuss this further and don't have to discuss on the message board. Hoping the run sells out soon though!"

Sounds like you must be the playwright or someone very closely connected with him, based on your offer to help with tickets and your several lengthy diatribes above."