AN EXCERCISE IN PURPOSEFUL FUTILITY
Welcome to the world of underserved K-12 education where punitive actions abound with no end in sight.
In Exception to the Rule, playwright Dave Harris (Tambo & Bones) brings us into an existential, self-imposed detention room, where its victims’ enforcer never shows up. It’s an adolescent Waiting for Godot, where the repeat offenders are too afraid to leave the room to look for the non-existent Mr. Bernie, who is the only one who can release them from their bondage. All the students in detention are African-American – unfortunately not a huge surprise.
Shana Lee Hill, Khalia Muhammad, Jacques Jean-Mary,
Sabrina Lynne Sawyer, Khouri St.Surin, and Steven Taylor Jr.
“Roger left detention once and got shot!” exaggerates and warns one of the detainees against leaving Room 111. He was later corrected — the student’s disappearance was because he transferred schools.
Of the play’s six captives, the only one to question this absurd conundrum (damned if you do leave; damned if you don’t) is shy, studious Erika (Sabrina Lynne Sawyer), nicknamed “College Bound Erika,” who her fellow inmates are shocked to see in detention.
Shana Lee Hill, Khalia Muhammad, Sabrina Lynne Sawyer,
Steven Taylor Jr., Khouri St.Surin, and Jacques Jean-Mary
The rest of them — repeat offenders who all know each other and are quite versed on the rules – have been ironically conditioned into compliance without questioning authority.
Every time Erika suggests looking for Mr. Bernie, one of her fellow captives instructs her to just wait it out.
Jacques Jean-Mary, Sabrina Lynne Sawyer, and Steven Taylor Jr.
Director Miranda Haymon succeeds in creating their tortured existence for viewers, who have to wait out the students’ sentence in a long, 80-minute span. There is no intermission but plenty of uncomfortable silences. The play’s realism is almost a fault, where the situation seems to drag — but that is Haymon’s intention (she also directed the play’s 2022 off-Broadway debut at Roundabout’s Black Box Theatre).
The scene: a sterile room populated only by six traditional desks that face the audience, an unoccupied teacher’s desk in the back of the room, a small American flag above the exit, industrial windows too high to look out of, and a cinder block backdrop — could be in any town, anywhere. We, as witnesses, are as close to Tony Cisek’s set as possible, as the audience sits on three sides. Who knows? This type of painful scenario could be happening in real time in various schools around the country, as we watch helplessly.
Shana Lee Hill, Jacques Jean-Mary, Khalia Muhammad, Sabrina Lynne Sawyer, Steven Taylor Jr.
To occupy their time, the other students — Milayla (Khalia Muhammad); Tommy (Steven Taylor, Jr.); Dayrin (Jacques Jean-Mary); Dasani (Shana Lee Hill); and Abdul (Khouri St. Surin) — gossip and flirt, but also turn on each other in arguments and fights. Their issues with each other have played out over and over again, both inside and outside detention Room 111.
At the start of the play, an imposing booming intercom voice (Craig Wallace) informs that detention-bound students shouldn’t be late to Room 111 and adds that the school ranked 43 out of 49 in standardized tests, and has a “zero tolerance” policy, without defining what the school won’t tolerate.
Shana Lee Hill, Sabrina Lynne Sawyer
Playwright Harris throws another bit of irony our way when we realize that it is Friday afternoon and the start of a three-day weekend due to Monday being Martin Luther King’s birthday.
During the course of the play, we find out that Makayla was publicly humiliated before being sent to detention. Her skirt wasn’t the required length and she was forced to prove this fact by getting on her knees and showing that the material didn’t reach the floor. However, Makayla laughs this fact off, as she is accustomed to such discipline.
Khalia Muhammad, Sabrina Lynne Sawyer, Jacques Jean-Mary, Shana Lee Hill, Steven Taylor Jr.
Makayla’s buddy, Dasani, seems contently accustomed to Room 111 and occupies her time applying make-up and combing her hair as if she is in her own living room.
Dayrin and Abdul have a long-standing argument about Dayrin cutting in front of Abdul in the lunch line. “It’s the principle … what else have we got?” Abdul ironically pleads; his environment lacks basic fair beliefs.
Shana Lee Hill, Sabrina Lynne Sawyer, and Steven Taylor Jr.
The students have adapted to their unyielding domain and divided themselves into “good kids” and “bad kids.” Makayla is labeled a “bad girl,” much to her dismay, for performing sexual favors on Dayrin, who relentlessly teases her about it. Erika is deemed a “good girl;” she exclaims, “This isn’t how I pictured detention … I thought detention was quiet … a place where everyone remembers the mistakes that got them here and then learns how to not make the same mistakes again.” Her confession is greeted with a long pause and then uproarious laughter from her colleagues.
Khalia Muhammad, Jacques Jean-Mary, Sabrina Lynne Sawyer, Steven Taylor Jr., Shana Lee Hill
The students’ navigation through such moral dilemmas showcases their fragile emotional states.
The play ultimately begs the question: Have these students forever been forgotten; fallen through the cracks only to end up like Abdul’s imprisoned father — or worse? What will happen to Erika? Will she escape the oppressive hood or will she eventually be worn down and defeated? Is her first detention the start of that process?
Exception to the Rule leaves us with more questions than answers.
photos by Margot Schulman
Exception to the Rule
Studio Theatre
1501 14th Street NW in Washington, DC
ends on October 27, 2024
for tickets ($40-$95), visit Studio Theatre