In “Exception to the Rule,” currently playing at the Black Box Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center, is playwright Dave Harris more concerned about what might be the exception to the rule in his play’s inner-city high school classroom or what is the rule that looms over classroom one eleven’s detainees on the last day of the week prior to their much-needed long weekend? Two definitions support the conclusion that the answer is ‘both.’ “Exception to the Rule: A person who no matter the situation or risk will beat the odds. A person that always proves you wrong” (Urban Dictionary) “The term the exception that proves the rule is derived from a Latin phrase first used by Cicero, ‘exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis,’ which means the exception confirms the rule in cases not excepted.” (Grammarist)

What is the rule confirmed in this urban high school and who or what is the exception to that rule? The rule is both the toxic environment of inner-city public-school education, and the street kids it imprisons and oppresses. At first glance, the exception to the rule here might be “Porch Kid” and “College Bound” Erika (an elusive yet engaging interloper) who has been assigned detention in room one eleven after Mr. Bernie caught her and a Black boy f*c*ing in the bathroom. Erika seems nothing like the five “Street Kids” she’s obliged to spend time with. “She never [leaves her] porch. As such, [she is] shielded from most of what goes on around [her], though [she sees] it. From the safety of [her] home, [she watches but doesn’t] participate.” But she does make a connection with Abdul (a mournfully thoughtful and powerful Mister Fitzgerald).

Abdul has “[ventured] away from the [inside of his] home. [He has become] immersed in the world that [he is] necessarily a part of.” Abdul isn’t homeless like Daryin (a deeply troubled and underserved Tony Goins). He does not “steal food from the cafeteria [or] be goin in people’s lockers and stealin they lunch money” like Dasani (a wounded yet highly resourceful Claudia Logan).  He was excited for the school’s spelling bee but did not know how to study the spelling of words on his own. He tells Erika, “I’m tryna help myself.” But Abdul is in detention because he gave Dayrin a black eye after he cut in the lunch line.

Abdul is neither porch kid nor street kid. He’s somewhere in between, He is an exception to the rule in his urban high school. Mister Fitzgerald brings a haunting authenticity to Abdul’s struggle to escape from the anger that has surrounded him all his life. He tells Erika, “I get angry quick. Runs in the family.” Abdul is a young man of principle. He would like to walk away from his anger. Before he walks out of detention, he shares, “We in trouble, we carry trouble, trouble gonna be where trouble gonna be. I just wanna go home.”

Miranda Haymon directs “Exception to the Rule” with a steady hand informed by grace. They focus the remarkable power of the cast on peeling back the layers of Dave Harris’s searing script to reveal the crisis in America’s attempt to successfully model to students how to learn, how to think critically, how to discover themselves, how to find their space and give that space to others, how to regain their agency in a social structure determined to diminish their importance. The voice on the intercom demonstrates how the system’s understanding of consequences has blocked underserved students’ paths to success and self-realization.

The underbelly of public education in the United States is encrusted with decades of mistakes, misguided judgement, toxic paternalism, and abusive control. Mr. Bernie assigns students to detention, but never shows up to sign their papers that allow them to be free. Unable to get out of the school building, Abdul returns to classroom one eleven at the end of the play and affirms, I’m home.” Is it possible for him to ever get out of detention?