On Monday evening, audience members at Davidson’s Barber Theater were witness to a twenty-years-avoided conversation about race between two friends: Angela, a Black woman, and Lauren, a white woman. DISSONANCE, a two-woman play written and performed by Marci Duncan in collaboration with Kerry Sandell and directed by Davidson Assistant Professor of Theater Dr. James Webb, is a dramatic adaptation of real conversations between Duncan and Sandell.
In the wake of the 2020 murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, it was Sandell who first approached Duncan in early 2021, describing how she had been reflecting on the difference between the conversations they both were having with their sons at the time. “[Kerry said], ‘I think we should have a conversation about that, and I also think we should write a play about it.’ And that’s the genesis of it,” Duncan said in a post-show discussion moderated by the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative (DCI).
Barring a few dialogue stumbles and moments of unnecessarily harsh and unflattering white lighting at the play’s start, the overall performance was exceptional. Met with a standing ovation from the near-packed audience at its conclusion, at least one person was moved to tears and several others lingered on to congratulate the playwrights/actors and director. Tatiana Rodriguez ’27 said afterwards that Duncan and Sandell put into performance “things [she has] thought about all the time,” except now with greater clarity, eloquence and intention.
The choice to keep the set and other technical aspects like lighting and sound simple ensured the two friends and their conversation remained the play’s key focus. Opening the show with music and dance, along with the frequent comedy in the first segment, was crucial to creating an inviting and somewhat familiar atmosphere that aimed to welcome all audience members into the fold, rather than situating them as voyeurs to a private and vulnerable moment.
The entirety of DISSONANCE takes place in Angela (Duncan) and Lauren’s (Sandell) soon-to-open café—their first business venture together—on a fall Sunday in 2020. Simultaneous to establishing the friendship’s intimacy throughout the first half, small yet tense moments begin to hint at the looming conversation about race. Lauren’s suggestion that the two name their café “Ebony & Ivory” elicited audible groans from the audience. This tension comes to a head with Lauren’s announcement that not only is she dating Angela’s brother Brian, but the two are also recently engaged, prompting Angela to finally broach the topic of race explicitly.
As the conversation becomes progressively more complex, shared understanding still feels out of reach—until, rather suddenly, Lauren has a moment of realization. Using an analogy to the deliberate ignorance of a church near Auschwitz to the evident horrors of the Holocaust, Lauren apologizes to Angela for her own behavior and inaction in the face of blatant and violent racism towards Black communities in the United States.
DISSONANCE concludes with an emotional hug of reconciliation between the two friends. In the post-show DCI discussion, Webb explained that this particular scene is fundamental to the play’s vision. When friends avoid difficult conversations because they fear vulnerability, lost trust and connection often follow—a dissonance, if you will. Angela and Lauren’s final hug demonstrates that this dissonance is not lasting if we allow love to guide us to common ground and possibly, even, a stronger friendship.
Even so, it is here that DISSONANCE perhaps misses the mark. A resolution so abrupt, with loose ends seemingly tied up, feels disingenuous and unrealistic. While Duncan later remarked that the play’s end is just “the beginning” of the friends’ new journey, the play itself gives no meaningful indication that this specific conversation about race would continue.
This is especially troubling considering that not only do we fail to see incremental breakthroughs in Lauren’s understanding, but we also see her give truth to Angela’s accusation that Lauren continues to “excuse [herself] from responsibility.” Sure, Lauren recognizes her shortcomings as a friend to Angela after George Floyd’s murder. But to reference the Holocaust (mentioned for the first and only time at this juncture) as a segue to apologizing is a missed opportunity for a more substantial and personal apology.
Nevertheless, DISSONANCE is a well-intentioned and generally well-executed creative exploration of the power race exerts on friendship—and other relationship—dynamics in ways that likely resonate with many in the Davidson community.
“As a Black woman, […] seeing someone else have the [same] conversation [I’ve had] in such a public setting…hit home a lot,” Rodriguez said.
For Carolina Calvo ’29, the play has made her consider “having harder conversations like that with friends.”
Despite feeling at some moments that she “didn’t even…belong in the room” because of how intimate and vulnerable the conversation was, Calvo concluded that uncomfortable conversations about race are ones she “definitely should be listening to.”
DISSONANCE is not meant to offer a model upon or after which conversations about race should happen. Rather, it is a powerful demonstration that tough conversations about race can, should and do in fact happen between friends from different racial backgrounds. Duncan and Sandell also remind us of the generative potential such emotionally wrought conversations have: “We wanted to create this piece of art because that’s how we both communicate. […] That’s how we make sense of the world.”