Thrilling music, storytelling in Berkeley Rep’s “Mexodus”
Nygel D. Robinson in Mexodus, the live-looping musical at Berkeley Repertory Theatre through Oct. 20. Photo by Ben Krantz Studio
“What are you going to do with the days your ancestors earned you?”
That is the searing question asked early in Mexodus by Nygel D. Robinson, one of the show’s creators/performers and himself a descendant from enslaved people. Part of Robinson’s answer to that question is to partner with Brian Quijada, himself the son of Salvadoran immigrants, on a show about two bodies, one black, one brown. This show, a co-production of Berkeley Repertory Theatre with Baltimore Center Stage and Mosaic Theater Company of DC, will also be a live-looping musical about liberty, solidarity and a piece of American history almost lost to time.
Mexodus is many things, but it is above all thrilling because there are so many fantastic things happening simultaneously. There is live music being made by the two performers using digital tools to loop the sounds into a symphony of beats and melodies. The poetry and thrust of hip-hop propels the 100-minute show, but the richness of the musical palette also includes spirituals, canciones, sublime acoustic guitar work, piano interludes and soulful expressions of the characters’ deepest feelings.
Working with sound designer Mikhail Fiksel, Robinson and Quijada make all the music we hear, and if you’ve never experienced looping, where a percussive sound or a musical phrase is captured digitally and repeated in various combinations, they explain and demonstrate it so that we can all be suitably impressed by what we’re seeing and hearing.
Brian Quijada in Berkeley Rep's Mexodus. Photo by Ben Krantz Studio
While the performers acclimate us to the way this show is going to unfold (amid a jumbled barn set by Riw Rakkulchon in Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre), we slowly slip into a story about Henry (Robinson), born into slavery and eventually sold as a child to a Texas cotton farmer. As an adult in the mid-1800s, Henry runs into trouble on the farm and makes a run for the Rio Grande in the hope he can cross into Mexico and freedom. Mexico had outlawed slavery in 1837, but that didn’t stop American landowners from crossing the border and trying to reclaim their “property” by offering substantial rewards.
Henry’s flight would certainly have ended in his death by drowning had he not been rescued Carlos (Quijada), a tormented veteran of the Mexican-American war now trying to establish his own farm.
How these two men come to work together and trust one another is the show’s primary focus, but their cooperation is symbolic of what would become a southern route of the Underground Railroad – not well documented – that saw thousands of enslaved people fleeing the U.S. to find their freedom in Mexico.
Nygel D. Robinson (left) is Henry and Brian Quijada is Carlos in Berkeley Rep's Mexodus. Photo by Ben Krantz Studio
As actors, singers, musicians and themselves, Quijada and Robinson couldn’t be more compelling or appealing. Their artistry at all levels is really something to behold. Director David Mendizábal, who is also Berkeley Rep’s associate artistic director, skillfully showcases his performers’ abundant talents all the while keeping the story moving forward and unfolding in surprising and impactful ways.
If anything, this dynamic show has more bells and whistles than it needs. Quijada and Robinson are impossible not to watch, whether they’re making musical loops or playing out a dramatic chapter of the story, and that would probably be true on a stage with hardly anything on it but their music-making equipment. Still, Mendizábal surrounds them with lots of props – mostly things you’d find in a barn – and then adds in more then a dozen video screens and occasional projections that, while lovely, don’t add a lot to what the performers are already providing.
Though the story, with its echoes and repercussions, is powerful and weighty, what lingers after the final bows is the absolute joy these performers demonstrate in their energetic music making and storytelling. We’ve seen hip-hop successfully incorporated into musicals before (hello, Mr. Miranda), but has there ever been a two-person, live-looping, hip-hop, soul, jazz, show tune musical like Mexodus? Not that I’ve experienced, but let’s hope Quijada and Robinson continue pushing the boundaries of what vital musical storytelling can be.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson’s Mexodus continues through Oct. 20 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Running time is 105 minutes (no intermission). Tickets start at $22.50 and prices are subject to change. Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.
