Singing in Solidarity

Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson first met in February 2020, and soon after, the world shut down. Over the following year, with the backdrop of a global pandemic and racial reckoning, Brian and Nygel dedicated themselves to researching and co-writing Mexodus. Since then, Brian and Nygel have brought the show to life in Baltimore, MD, Washington, DC, and now here, at Berkeley Rep. Mexodus Director, Costume Designer, and Berkeley Rep Associate Artistic Director David Mendizábal sat down with Brian and Nygel to ask them about their creative process, their influences, and their hopes for this radical, live-looping, hip-hop musical.

David Mendizábal: How has y’all’s relationship evolved since first meeting, both as friends and as collaborators?

Nygel D. Robinson: Our lives have been weirdly paralleling the play. We started out pretty much as perfect strangers who had an idea and trusted each other enough to work on it, but you never know. So, we learned things along the way. I learned who Brian was, and Brian learned who I am. We know what works for each other, what doesn’t work. We know how to coexist. We’ve learned how to collaborate much like the two men in the play must learn how to give and take with each other. Now, Brian is one of my closest friends.

Brian Quijada: I think when we came together, we saw that we had strengths and we had weaknesses. We both brought the things that we thought we knew how to do well to the table, and were like, cool, I can’t do that, so can you help me figure it out? I’m excited to keep learning from Nygel because I feel like he makes me better.

NR: And vice versa. We challenge each other and are becoming more well-rounded as creatives, I think, because of each other.

DM: You’ve decided to tell this story about a Black man and a brown man who come together in solidarity to help each other find their own version of liberation. In this moment where our country feels especially divided, I’m curious what it means for you two to be artists intentionally telling stories, and what this story means to you now.

NR: Brian and I are not going to the Army. We’re not going to the Navy. We’re not going to the military. We’re not going to pick up a gun and fight for anything like that. But what we can do is pick up a pen, pick up a guitar, and use our voices and use our minds to try to make things a little better. This piece is especially important this Fall because we’re about to run into a lot of misinformation and a lot of division and a lot of things that pit Black people against brown people. So why not show us that if we get together, we can overcome these obstacles that whiteness is throwing in our faces?

BQ: Yeah, I feel like ever since I started writing — this year marks 10 years since I started — it always feels dire. I mean, it feels extra dire in this election cycle, but it always feels bad. Immigration politics is always on the ballot, and it’s one of the things that I’m most passionate about because of my immigrant parents. So, it always feels important to share to a wide audience, to try to have compassion towards the American brown immigrant. I think where this piece differs for me is that it combines my passions with a more national and — let’s be honest — global issue of anti-Blackness. It allows me to both fight for the things that I’ve been fighting for in my writing for the past 10 years and unite with Nygel in creating work for a more compassionate country that is trying to abolish white supremacy.

DM: We throw the word “solidarity” around so much, but what does it actually mean to you?

BQ: Maybe this is super corny, but I think of the Martin Luther King Jr. quote about looking beyond what anybody looks like, their color of skin, disability, gender, and being like, who is this person? What is their heart? Can I connect with this person heart to heart beyond their physical appearance? I think that’s solidarity for me.

NR: It’s a willingness to feel discomfort for the sake of someone else. I think about the solidarity movements we’re seeing right now with Palestinians, and it’s like, what does it cost you to stand up for this group of people? And if you’re not willing to face the consequences of standing for this group of people, are you in solidarity with anyone other than yourself?

BQ: That’s a better answer than mine.

DM: I love that idea of solidarity being a willingness to sit in discomfort if it means supporting the liberation of others because it’s not actually harming you. Discomfort is not harmful if you’re not placing yourself in harm’s way. One of the things that found its way into the show was the radical welcoming at the top. I’m curious why that feels important to you.

NR: I mean, no one else is radically welcoming you into a theatre. Churches might radically welcome you, but only if you’re a Christian, only if you believe in what I believe in. But with this we’re like, no, no, no. Bring yourself. Come experience this thing and don’t worry about what etiquette tells you to do. When you feel comfortable enough to be your full self, you’re able to receive and hopefully walk out changed.

BQ: Yeah. I also think that the American theatre was made into a capitalist venture by and for white folk. And it’s beginning to shift a little bit where it feels like we’re on the brink of people like my parents coming to the theatre who would have never come before because they never felt invited, or that they could be themselves. Oftentimes they’ll be like, oh, I don’t know the etiquette of the place because it’s not part of the culture. They’ve never felt welcomed in that way. And so, I think when we say “¡Bienvenidos!,” we’re saying, we see you, and we’re happy you’re here. We’re saying whoever you are and wherever you came from; if this is your first play ever, you’re welcome here.

DM: Let’s talk about the musical influences in Mexodus. It’s a hip-hop musical. And I know that you are both hip-hop heads, but you are also drawing from other styles including Mexican boleros and African American spirituals. How do these sounds come together to make Mexodus and why hip-hop?

NR: I mean, I hate to quote [Lin ManuelMiranda], but “hip-hop is the language of revolution.” Hip-hop was created by Black and brown people, and that history mirrors our story of Black and brown solidarity.

BQ: Yeah. I mean, it has to be hip-hop. It’s such an effective form of relaying intense emotion, intense frustration, and getting out a bunch of exposition and doing it in a fun, cool way. In terms of the other music, I grew up listening to Los Panchos and Los Dandys and a bunch of Vicente Fernández and Selena, in the same way that we both grew up with hip hop and R&B, like Erykah Badu and —

NR: Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway and Luther Vandross and Earth, Wind, and Fire…

BQ: It’s less of an intentionality of us being like, oh, what if this sounded like this? It’s just the music that we grew up with and exists in the very way that we hear music. Live looping is the future of the American theatre!

NR: There you go. Hell yeah!

DM: And why?

BQ: Because it must be seen live. If we want people to choose the theatre over Netflix, we must do something that can only be seen live and experienced live. There’s something about the magic of seeing and experiencing this show live.

DM: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.