Exception to the Rule at Roundabout
May 31
2022, 06:47:00 PM
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."
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Exception to the Rule at Roundabout
May 19
2022, 10:01:06 AM
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
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