Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf at The Magnetic Theatre
Public schools are in crisis. Teachers don’t have what they need. Black and brown communities are underserved by underfunded classrooms and overburdened with racist systems that are supposed to keep them safe. BIPOC history, and therefore its cultural importance, is being erased from classrooms. Students get shot and killed.
As a white person with no kids, these are realities I am aware of but not entrenched in. Like others, I see them in headlines, read them in statements from politicians and activists, and hear them as sound bite quotes tacked onto larger news stories boasting political promises and public safety proselytism. But scattering those messages across the daily information cycle doesn’t provide context or convey how living with and navigating these crises truly feels.
In Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf, on stage at The Magnetic Theatre through June 17, Madison, Wisc.-based poet and former schoolteacher Charles Payne undertakes the monumental task of putting these perils into the same room to show how they all add up to a greater whole.
Over the course of 28 short vignettes, the performance employs monologues, music, poetry, and skits to add layer after layer to the complexity of the situations teachers and students confront every day. There is not a central plot or storyline to follow — instead, the production builds scenario on top of scenario to give a cumulative sense of how hemmed-in people are as they simply try to teach or grow. The effect is immersive, frustrating, and illuminating.
The cast — Aina Rapoza, Bill Heath, Jessica Wilson, and Kevin Evans — each play a bevy of characters, teachers, students, parents, and kids, swiftly shifting into new roles, perspectives, and circumstances. At the play’s opening, the four performers take turns telling us about each of their favorite teachers. The testimonials are personable and forthright, with the actors appearing to drop their masks and speaking off the cuff, complete with verbal tics and self-corrections.
But don’t be fooled or put off by the candor. As the production progresses, each of these players rise to the desperation, anger, absurdity, and exasperation of the conditions they navigate. Heath simmers, sometimes boils, but also connects with empathetic patience. Wilson opens her heart with both despair and resolve. Evans broadcasts consternation as he tries to make sense of a puzzle where the pieces just won’t fit. And Rapoza stands atop the love and pride of his cultural history while seeking to escape its rigidity.
The cast all wear uniform gray jumpsuits (courtesy of costume designer Beth Soler) that serve the show well, considering all of the characters these actors are asked to play, but also allow them to visually contrast with the multi-colored spray-painted background by scenic painter Dyneece Johnson.
As its title expresses, Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf directs your attention to the restraints and dangers BIPOC children have to endure both inside and outside school. Kids bear the generational pressure of their families at home, face the threat of violence in class, and are taught by their parents how to behave to increase their chances of surviving an encounter with the cops. Children are growing up without any safe corner to turn to, and when the focus is on basic survival, how much can we expect children to truly shine? Having to struggle just to stay safe steals away time for art, for love, for dreams.
Schools in turn cut arts and humanities programs in favor of standardized testing, trying to win needed funding. When achievement is prioritized over a child’s dreams of their future, the truly awesome achievement is the child who realizes their dreams despite these obstacles.
When we use the words “teacher” and “student,” there’s a reflex to only imagine the people in the context of the classroom. But their lives, like anyone else’s, extend into the outside world. When teachers are not paid enough, they lose apartments. When children aren’t safe getting home on their own, teachers walk them there, only to find the home empty because the family has been detained by ICE.
Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf doesn’t pull its punches, and the exasperation and exhaustion comes through clearly. Yet the production is, at its heart, human and tender. There is humor and power and awkwardness alongside the anguish as young adults try to learn about love and dating or navigate difficult social differences, and as adults recount how they once dreamt — or even still dream — of making the world better.
Director Katie Jones has done well by Payne’s source material, making use of the simple set and small cast to let the tone of these stories and experiences remain at the forefront. As the show progresses through its many scenarios, and performers move from role to role, the messages and mood linger.
Music is woven throughout the production, both on stage and in between scene changes, and the audience is prompted up front to sing, clap, stomp or dance along. Some vignettes consist entirely of one or more player singing the songs that have served as vessels to carry people through struggle, like “Amazing Grace,” “This Little Light of Mine,” or even Bill Withers’ “Grandma’s Hands,” and “Mama Cry” by YNW Melly. Additionally, music director Gina Purri fills scene breaks with beats from artists like Ski Lo and original compositions from Richard Jones, creating a seamless thread from start to finish.
Payne’s play delivers a direly important message, and in the hands of this talented cast, it feels especially poignant and urgent. The production was born as a 10-page chorepoem Payne wrote to explore his experiences as a public school teacher, and then was accepted into the Magnetic Theatre’s New Play Development Program. That two-year process is worthy of a longer story all on its own, but Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf is itself crucial viewing on an important theme, especially for those of us who are privileged enough to be able to read about it in a headline and then go about our day.
Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf runs through Saturday, June 17, at The Magnetic Theatre. For details and tickets, visit themagnetictheatre.org.
(Photo by Jennifer Bennett)
