Race satire that elicits both laughs and gasps

Tambo & Bones

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London E15

★★★★★

As the lights come on at the end of Tambo & Bones, the audience is invited to stay behind for 15 minutes to reflect. After witnessing the rollercoaster that is Dave Harris’s satire on race, capitalism and performance, it in fact takes longer than that to fully digest the thought-provoking scenes that have unfolded, which veer between the darkly funny and the downright disturbing.

This unapologetic vision of America’s racial history – combining elements of minstrelsy, hip-hop and afrofuturism – is designed to be provocative and radical. What director Matthew Xia probably didn’t anticipate was the drama that would envelope the UK premiere even before its opening night. Theatre Royal Stratford East made headlines last month with its decision to introduce one “Black Out” night in the show’s 29-date run, designed to allow a black-identifying audience to experience the show “free from the white gaze”.

The commercialisation of the black experience in relation to the “white gaze” is at Tambo & Bones’s core. Initially trapped in a minstrel show in a Godot-esque scene, Tambo and Bones – the names belonging to two stock characters from the early American theatrical form which saw actors playing up to racist stereotypes – are desperate to make money and escape. Dressed in tatty tailcoats, Rhashan Stone and Daniel Ward (as Tambo and Bones respectively) attempt to win over audiences with slapstick routines, intellectual displays and sob stories, but to no avail.

In part two, the duo become blinged-out hip-hop stars with baseball caps and gold chains. But have they really escaped, or are they being exploited to tell stories of black pain for commercial gain? Fast-forward 400 years for the last act, and the pair are free, but at what cost? There’s no definitive answer, but the outcome is distressing.

Still, Harris’s concept is an interesting one, on which the script more often than not delivers. There are points, however – especially during the rap routine – where you wish the lines and lyrics were more nuanced, less laboured and didn’t depend so heavily on expletives.

This metatheatrical extravaganza relies on audience participation and, happily, Stone and Ward are up to the task. They bring the energy and comic timing required to elicit visceral reactions from their audience: laughs at the uncomfortable comedy, grooving during the concert or gasps at the unexpected violence. All is aided fantastically by designers Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and Ultz.

This subversive production may not be to everyone’s taste, but Harris has surely fulfilled his aim: to create a play “you’ve never seen on stage before”.

Godot-esque: Rhashan Stone as Tambo and Daniel Ward as Bones