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Tambo & Bones

This Play Ain’t Playin With Y’all

by Omar Holmon
Essays This Play Ain’t Playin With Y’all

Y’all know the definition of a sucker punch? It’s a punch you don’t see coming and, once you do, you can’t avoid or deflect it. 

I walked into the playwright Dave Harris’ Tambo & Bones knowing only the premise: Tambo (W. Tré Davis) and Bones (Tyler Fauntleroy) are two characters stuck in a minstrel show, plotting their great escape. We first meet Tambo in a cartoon-like fashion, maneuvering a tree to give himself shade so he can rest. Tambo’s rest is disturbed as soon as Bones hits the stage and starts a hustle upon the audience to gain some money in the form of quarters. I’m not going to lie, I was worried that the campy and cartoonish beginning was going to be the entirety of the play. White folks were laughing and enjoying it, but it wasn’t for me, I was waiting for the catch. Once we begin to see Bones’ obsession with quarters – making him raise questions about why there is so little money between the two of them, and making Tambo find the answers to those questions – as well as a better way for Bones to acquire more quarters – that’s where I started to come alive. I thought to myself, “Okay, here’s the sucker punch that I wasn’t supposed to see coming.” 

Towards the middle of the first act, Tambo gives us a beautifully succinct version of not only capitalism and race in America, but also of the ways Black folk had to use their trauma or pain as an art to gain finance. We then see Bones’ quarter obsession become Tambo’s obsession, too – which raises more questions about why things are the way they are and who MADE them that way. What happens from here on out is a selective and distinct puncture of the fourth wall. After this moment, much like Drake’s third album, nothing was the same. 

At this point, I was laughing along with everyone else, and thinking, “Okay, this part gotta be the sucker punch.” But I was wrong again, and couldn’t have been happier. Act I won me over, and Act II had me saying, “Oh, this is on some OTHER shit,” but Act III? Act III changed me. I spent so much time looking for the sucker punch that I didn’t realize each act is a combo of sucker punches with Fat Joe as the referee shouting, “Yesterday’s price is NOT today’s price” as the set transforms into the big picture Dave Harris was painting all along. 

Tambo & Bones feels like the art, vibe, and aesthetic I been looking for since 2020. Lemme rephrase that, this is the Black art I been wanting for the longest. There’s a quote from Paul Mooney where he says, “White folk won’t let us have too much fun … so if you Black and around white folk, don’t have too much fun. Just grin a lil bit.” It feels like  Dave Harris is daring anyone to try and take this Black joy, Black fun, and Black boy fly away – and I love him for that. 

The chemistry between Davis and Fauntleroy is tag-team-level perfect. We see these actors having the time of their lives on that stage. We also see their range: Davis and Fauntleroy serve not only as great actors, but great performers, seamlessly delivering lyrics to songs that show two different sides of rap culture. The musical portion of the show feels like Dave Harris’ love letter to battle rap and hip-hop. I couldn’t help but think of this musical portion as the anti-Hamilton: this was the Haitian Revolution-esque musical I never thought I’d get to see. Taylor Reynolds directed a masterpiece that runs like a well-oiled machine. Davis rapped his ass off with immaculate breath control and political conscious quips. Fauntleroy worked the crowd with charm and sniper-sharp comedic timing. 

Each time I thought I had a handle on this play, I realized I did not. The play navigates between quirky, artsy, precisely funny, and dark, and adds in an element of Afrofuturism with a twist that’s hilariously brilliant (shoutout to Brendan Dalton and Dean Linnard for nailing their roles in the final segment). This play addresses issues of race, capitalism, and the way Black folk have to make their pain and trauma malleable for profit, as themes – as well as reference to a race war. By the end of the final act, all the white folks in the audience who had been laughing at the cartoony campiness of Act I were not laughing… but my wife and I were, very loudly. 

Listen, you know how I know this play is a game-changer? At the end of the show, in the lobby, a dude was so upset about the finale that he knocked over a sign, a hand sanitizer station, and the table with the programs, then went outside and threw a plant from a restaurant into 42nd Street traffic, literally causing a car to stop. As my wife and I helped the Playwrights staff bring the table right-side up from the aftermath of white fragility, the one thought that crossed my mind was, “Well, that only solidified just how flames this play is! I can’t wait to tell my friends about this spectacle.” I could tell he was one of the folks laughing at the beginning of the play but he ain’t find the ending funny like we did.  

So maybe I should actually be telling you, don’t see this play if Black folk being able to imagine themselves outside of oppression isn’t for you. Don’t see this play if you just here for Black trauma porn cause ain’t none here for ya babes. Tambo & Bones isn’t for the fake deep kids. I honestly cannot wait to see the watered-down version of this on the big screen cause there ain’t no way Hollywood goin’ let Dave Harris run loose like he did with this jam right here. Tambo & Bones is the real rap raw theater Off-Broadway truly needs right now. The upper echelon ain’t ready for this…

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