Review: ‘Mexodus’ at Studebaker Theater

We live in an era of genre breakdown. Documentaries get fictionalized reenactments, arena concerts have narratives and every musical style is ripe for blending with any other.

And within this mix-and-match, anything can cut through and stake its claim to cultural relevance, no matter how initially improbable it seems. If I had $10 for every time someone commented on the unlikelihood of runaway success for, say, a hip-hop musical based on American history, I’d be rich.

Now at Studebaker Theater until Nov. 21, “Mexodus” is, in essence, a hip-hop musical based on Mexican and American history, with a portmanteau name to match its blended approach. The title combines “Mexico” and “Exodus,” referring to a little-known historical episode in which slaves in the American South escaped not north through the Underground Railroad to the American North, but south to free Mexico.

Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, the creators of the show, also perform it in a two-handed tour de force. It’s an impressive display of multifarious musical talent, coordinating many instruments, rapid-fire lyrics and acting, and the duo pulls it off with elan. The most exciting part of “Mexodus” is watching all this play out live.

“Mexodus” began life as a COVID-era concept album, and the live show still gives concert vibes. The stage set is dotted with traditional musical instruments and other things that can make music. For example, during the course of the show, Robinson plays guitar, double bass, piano, washtub bass, trumpet and multiple makeshift percussion instruments. Quijada plays guitar, accordion and percussion, as well as doing some beatboxing.

To perform this show without a backup band, Quijada and Robinson build the accompaniment for most of the music using loopers. They pick up an instrument, play four bars with the looper recording and then the looper plays back the recorded riff as an ostinato. They can then layer another instrument on top, or harmonize with themselves by looping their voice singing multiple parts one after another.

The narrative in “Mexodus” follows Henry (Robinson), a slave in Texas who kills his owner and flees southward. After nearly drowning while crossing a river, he is rescued by Carlos (Quijada), a farmer who gives him shelter and work. When his farm floods in a big storm, Carlos thinks he is ruined, but Henry knows from his experience farther north how to dig trenches to drain the fields, thereby saving Carlos in return.

Thomas Mundell

Throughout, Robinson and Quijada deliver almost all the lines through music. The loops underpinning the rapping and singing work well to match the hip-hop style, but they do mean that each individual number lacks for musical happenings, and there is a sameness to the way they unfold: loop the beats to build the accompaniment, deliver the lyrics, end. They come up with many inventive variations on this theme, including one late in the show where the audience sings or hums the lick that gets looped, but it does get a bit tiring, such that a lovely unlooped guitar duet when shoveling the trenches comes as a welcome change.

A few songs and passages are in Spanish. A non-native Spanish speaker can pick up a large percentage of what’s being sung and said, but a bilingual audience member will catch things the monolinguals won’t.

Both Quijada and Robinson have a lot of stage charisma. They address the audience directly at the opening of the show, with a very concert-like “What’s up, Chicago? How we doin’?”, establishing a transparent fourth wall early on. Quijada occasionally does some mugging, as when spinning his spur when first appearing in his Carlos costume or grinning at the audience while building a crackling-fire loop from crumpling paper and snapping.

If this show has one major flaw, it’s that the presentation of its themes comes off a bit didactic. The idea of the underappreciated role of free Mexico in the story of American slavery comes through without the show-don’t-tell violation of pointing out that we didn’t learn this in school alongside Harriet Tubman. The story of Henry’s flight to freedom and Carlos’ selfless assistance is powerful enough without being told that it’s powerful.

Thomas Mundell

And it is powerful, especially when you see it live, with the high-energy presentation and the explicit encouragement to whoop or dance if the spirit moves you. If you don’t make it during the short run “Mexodus” has here in Chicago, however, you can also experience it presented through another genre: Audible has recorded the off-Broadway production for its Audible Theater division, so this concept album/hip-hop musical/live-looping concert is also an audio play.