Bold Theatrical Risk Taking Pays Off in Mexodus

One could be forgiven for wondering in the opening minutes of Mexodus just how much of a musical it would really be. The opening, with co-stars and co-creators Nygel D. Robinson and Brian Quijada's high energy entrance and introduction to the idea of live looping, felt more like a concert. A DJ set with elaborate scenic design. And that's really what it was, interspersed with a narrative arc and more than a sprinkling of metatheatrical breaks. It's bold, and it's a recipe for a great piece of theatre.

Mexodus stages an an untold story, that of the tens of thousands of enslaved people in the United States who escaped, not northwards on the Underground Railroad, but south over the Rio Grande to Mexico. It follows Henry (Nygel D. Robinson) a slave who makes his bid for freedom, nearly drowning in the process, before being plucked from the river by Carlos (Brian Quijada), who spends his days running a farm and grappling with his guilt over abandoning his men in the chaos of the Mexican-American war, where he served as a medic. It's a fascinating story, an amalgamation of heaps of research done by the pair, and one that comes with built-in thorny questions around why this history is so poorly documented and infrequently taught, questions that Mexodus does not shy away from. But even this riveting plot takes a backseat to the real star of the show: the music.

I am no musician and I certainly have never attempted to perform anything with live looping, so I have no idea how hard it actually is to pull off, but it looks and sounds quite difficult. I can remember more than a couple of musicians I've seen perform who did something with live looping in their acts and who prefaced it with a disclaimer that things might not work as well as they hoped. In Mexodus, it works flawlessly. For a bit over 90 minutes, Robinson and Quijada spin an entire musical out of looping tracks performed live on stage.

Measure by measure, beat by beat, instrument by instrument, they build up the songs, rising into giant cacophonies of sound before falling into pointed moments of quiet. It's as impressive musically as it is technically--Mikhail Fiksel deserves a lot of credit for his work in literally turning the entire stage into a loop machine with pedals and other controls both plainly visible and integrated into the set. I found myself so impressed–enraptured, even–by the looping process that the click of the loop pedals itself seemed to become a part of the performance. It's like a magic trick. You don't know exactly what is going to happen... is it starting the recording, or stopping it, or adding a layer, or removing a layer or what... but you learn very quickly that the click from the floor, that flick of the foot, means that cool shit is about to happen.

I'm actually conflicted on whether I wish that they had worked the looping equipment into the set more or not. On the one hand, the reveal that various set pieces controlled (or at least appeared to control) aspects of the music, like a spinning crank wheel changing the tempo, was extremely fun. On the other, knowing that one of the actors just stepped on a magic pedal was its own fun. I think I come down on the side of wishing they'd integrated that machinery into the set more. It would've been interesting to see even more creativity in that.

On top of looping everything together I was floored by the sheer volume of instruments Robinson and Quijada each play throughout the show. Quijada plays the guitar and the accordion, beatboxes, works the drum machine and turntables, blows a harmonica, and even takes a turn on a washboard. Robinson though, seems to play everything. He also has his turns on the drum machine and turntables, plays the guitar, and beatboxes. And he plays the piano, and an upright base, and a cajon, and a set of spoons. Hell, even just looking at the upright base, he plays it every which way, plucking at its strings, grabbing a bow from seemingly nowhere to play more traditionally, and rapping his hands on the wood to turn it into another percussion instrument. I had a friend in high school who impressed (and inspired more than his fair share of jealousy) with his ability to pick up nearly any instrument quickly and reasonably well. Robinson and Quijada take that kind of talent to an absurd level. The volume of instruments alone is impressive; the quality of performance maintained across such a large volume is even more so.

They play all these instruments, bouncing from one to the other almost as seamlessly as they blend different musical styles. Hip hop, jazz, gospel, bolero, all blending and working together. The music becomes a character itself, a subtle narrator of sorts letting us know whose point of view we are focused on and guiding us through transitions.

It's difficult to not view the entire show through the prism of looping. Reprises hit a little differently when we've watched and heard each phrase created live on stage. Sure, each song was written long before the moments we hear them, but it doesn't feel that way.

This looping elevates the audience's awareness of the past and present of the show's music, encouraging more reflection on the theme of history and its connection to the present day, so much so that I found myself seeing connections between past and present everywhere. Mexodus primes us for this from the very beginning, framing the play with the actors introducing themselves, and by including monologues about themselves personally, their families, their ancestors.

The blending of past and present extends to even the smallest details of the show. For example, when Quijada finally comes on stage as Carlos, we get an extended moment where his feet are projected live onto the set behind him and the audience chuckles at the fact that he wears a cowboy's boot spurs over his Adidas Samba sneakers. A humorous moment, yes, but it was also another nod saying "there are real links between this past and the present day, between this character and this actor." There's another moment where Henry (Robinson), wearing a straw hat, is silhouetted center stage with harsh red lighting. For a flash, the hat became a a soldier's helmet spurring me to think of a through-line of history: from the brutal legacy of slavery of Henry and Carlos's time, to the history of US invasion and occupation of other countries, to the present day world that Robinson and Quijada inhabit. Maybe its a stretch. But that's where the looping, combined with the framing around the actors themselves being characters in the show and the many nods or explicit references to history and personal ancestry, took me.

The show is not shy about connecting the present day to history, the dark and twisted ones we'd rather not –but must– engage with. It's heavy for audience and performers alike. As Robinson and Quijada remark again and again: "We're only singin' it, 'Cause that's the way we live with it."

Theatre is special in large part because it is live. It begets a present, tangible, realness in a way other art cannot. When there is a clear social message, it imbues a sense of urgency. Mexodus boldly pushes the live-ness of theatre to its near-breaking point, impressing at nearly every turn.

Standing ovation most definitely deserved.