Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Dave Harris’s ambitious and panoramic fantasia TAMBO & BONES only moderately provokes

• By drediman
• February 9, 2022
• No Comments

This week, Dave Harris’s Tambo & Bones opened Off-Broadway courtesy of Playwrights Horizons. The production is being co-presented by Los Angeles’s Center Theatre Group, where it will run subsequent to its New York engagement later this spring. The ambitious world premiere play tells the wide-reaching tale of Tambo and Bones, two Black performers who, try as they might, cannot escape their perpetual fate as participants in a sort of perpetual (self-perpetuated?) minstrel show.

In theme and stylistic daring, the play calls to mind similarly ambitious plays that have been written over the past decade, namely Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over, Branden Jacobs Jenkins’ An Octoroon, and Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview, just to name a few (in its audacious historical sweep, there are also shades of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth). Unfortunately, in its exploration of pressing racial issues, Mr. Harris’s fantasia lacks the confrontational bite of those notable aforementioned plays. In theory, Tambo & Bones sounds promising, both in premise – its fascination over the relationship between capitalism and systemic racism is worth investigating – and structure. Unfortunately, each of its three stylistically divergent segments (a minstrel show, a rap concert, a dystopian sci fi scenario) come across relatively tame and only moderately provokes. By taking the panoramic approach and opting not to delve more deeply into each episode (the play runs a brisk 90 minutes), the play loses specificity and, therefore, impact.

Even the performances don’t feel as dangerous as I was hoping they would be. Although W. Tré Davis (Tambo) and Tyler Fauntleroy (Bones) are skillful and charismatic actors, both seem a tad too congenial to make much of a visceral impact. The production has been directed sturdily by Taylor Reynolds, who admirably gives each of the play’s three chapters a distinct look and feel. I just wish that the same kind of attention to detail was paid to the play itself.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

TAMBO & BONES
Off-Broadway, Play
Playwrights Horizons
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through February 27