Entertainment (music, sports) is a well-worn route by which members of the underclass can escape their humble origins. Dave Harris’s satire Tambo & Bones suggests black people wishing to try this route might have to conform to stereotypical expectations or use material developed by white people.
Tambo & Bones opens in the 19th and closes in the 25th century. In the former, minstrel shows, mainly performed by white actors in blackface, were common and offered exaggerated portrayals of black people behaving in a buffoonish manner, thereby confirming prejudiced beliefs they were not equal to white people. The play begins against an obviously artificial background—a paper sun shines while Tambo (Clifford Samuel) sneaks a nap by uprooting a prop tree.
Both characters break the fourth wall, Tambo with cartoonish winks to the audience and Bones (Daniel Ward) by cadging spare change. Having failed to prompt empathy with made-up tales of woe, Bones realises the audience does not want sob stories or thrills but to see the characters suffer, even bleed. Tambo feels a better way of communicating is to extend awareness and understanding by way of a presentation on race relations in America. Mortified upon realising the author of the play has dropped them into a minstrel show, the duo experience an existential crisis and confront their creator (a wonderful sight gag involving dragging a life-size puppet out of the audience) onstage for retribution.
While the indignities inflicted by white people may be the primary target of the satire, the play does not absolve black people from criticism. In act two, set in the present day, Tambo and Bones are highly successful rap stars. Bones enjoys the financial benefits of success, flaunting newfound wealth with fur coats and gold chains. Tambo, however, sees the opportunity to use fame as a platform to address racial inequality. Both agree the best way to achieve their objectives is to keep getting richer.
Act three turns the whole show on its head. It turns out we have been in the 25th century all along, and the preceding two acts were staged presentations allowing actors Clifford and Daniel to pay tribute to the extreme way in which the legendary Tambo and Bones resolved the race issue once and for all. Exhausted by their exertions, the actors make the concluding part of their presentation by way of a lecture with visual support from a pair of robots silently miming events. It does not go to plan.
Dave Harris’s script is stuffed with challenging ideas confronting audience preconceptions and exploring the concept of identity. The script even pokes fun at its own pretensions, wryly acknowledging the bulk of the audience is likely to be white. Faced with so many concepts, director Matthew Xia sets a giddy rollercoaster atmosphere rushing from one idea to another. Although each of the three acts has a distinct tone and there is a lot of abrasive humour, the mood consistently moves from light to dark with an undertone of violence.
The relative innocence of act one turns sour when Bones produces a knife, raising the possibility of threatening the audience or mutilating himself for their cheap thrills. Act two is close to wish fulfilment for the cast who get the chance to gleefully indulge in rap star fantasy complete with roving concert spotlights and a live DJ, yet there is a nasty undercurrent of exploiting (even showing contempt for) their fans who do not appreciate how the funds they contribute are being used. Act three is the most audacious as Kloé Dean’s stunning movement direction makes the stiff, artificial movements of the robots (Jaron Lammens and Dru Cripps coming close to upstaging the principals) screamingly funny yet distinctly alien; thereby, oddly sinister.
The violent conclusion, a chilling depiction of the inevitable futile outcome of racial conflict, is genuinely disconcerting. Thankfully, however, now America has become a worldwide laughingstock, it is possible to pretend the satire in Tambo & Bones is directed at white Americans rather than white people as a whole.