The Theatre Royal Straford East, in East London, have said that white visitors should not come and watch a performance of the race satire Tambo & Bones on July 5 this year.
The producer and director of the event said they are hosting the one-off “Black Out” event to create a “safe, private” space for an “all-black-identifying audience” to explore race-related issues.
While the theatre’s website stated that “no one is excluded”, promotional material made it clear that white theatre-goers are not welcome. The material said: “A Black Out night is the purposeful creation of an environment in which an all-black-identifying audience can experience and discuss an event in the performing arts, film, and cultural spaces – free from the white gaze.”
The play, Tambo & Bones, first opened in the US in 2022. It claims to explore 300 years of African American history through its eponymous characters, businessman Tambo and hustler Bones.
The play is split into three parts. The first shows the pair’s misfortunes as minstrels before they become rappers and then members of the Black Lives Matter movement. But it has received less than enthusiastic reviews in America, with the New York Times saying its satire on racism and capitalism has “little force behind it”.
Matthew Xia, the director of the UK run of the play, which costs up to £37.50 per ticket, said it was “imperative” that the Black Out performance went ahead.
In promotional material for the play, he wrote: “Over the last few years, a number of playwrights and directors in the US and the UK have created private and safe spaces for black theatre-goers to experience productions that explore complex, nuanced race-related issues.”
“I felt that with a play like Tambo & Bones, which unpicks the complexity of black performance in relation to the white gaze, it was imperative that we created such a space.”
A spokesman for the Theatre Royal Stratford East said: “Black Out night is an initiative which started on Broadway and has been taken up by several London theatres, the spirit of which is congregation, celebration and healing.”
“Tambo & Bones, staged at Stratford East, is a bold new play, a satire which actively explores race and what it is to be black. We have chosen to embrace this initiative for one performance, during the play’s month-long run, as a space for black audiences to experience the play as a community.”
One can hardly imagine the size of the outcry that would happen if a theatre was to announce that it was going to run a “White Out” event where only white theatre-goers were encouraged so they could explore what it means to be white in a safe space.
Accusations of racism would be sure to follow, probably with the attached threats of boycotts, legal action, the “cancelling” of all involved and denunciations of the play and theatre by politicians, celebrities and “community activists”.
We hear constantly that white people don’t understand the experiences of people of colour, so surely this show is exactly the type of thing that the campaigners should want people to attend and experience, to provoke thought about the history and experiences of minority groups.
The organisers themselves claim that the play “explores complex racial issues” and that it is “a space to heal”. But how can you explore difficult issues related to race when only one voice and point of view is heard? How can you heal a people without the group purportedly responsible for causing all their problems being involved?
The producers would argue that this is only one performance out of many, but by their actions are they not creating a hostile environment where certain people are made to feel unwelcome?
We are seeing more of these “people of colour only” spaces, such as the student housing co-op in Berkeley, California that has banned white people from its common areas and says that residents must get permission to bring white guests into the building. Then there was the Edinburgh University “anti-racism” event that prohibited white people from entering certain “safe spaces” or asking questions; a similar event at Goldsmiths University where white people (especially men) were banned from attending at all, and “equality lectures” held by the University and College Union where straight white men were told they were not welcome.
Segregation became a dirty word after people of all colours spent years fighting to end it, but it appears that we are now seeing a new segregation arising: one which seems to have the approval of educators, unions, politicians, activists and community leaders. This time the victims of this approved segregation and victimisation are white people, especially straight white males. Will we see a coming together of all races to fight this new segregation like we did in the 1960s and 70s? So far, it appears not.
