Mexodus

I saw Mexodus at the Daryl Roth Theatre at the Tuesday matinee on April 14, and ninety minutes was not enough. I wanted another thirty, at minimum. I would have stayed for the whole thing again.

This is a live-looping hip-hop musical created and performed by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, directed by David Mendizábal, and it tells a chapter of American history that most of us were never taught. You know the Underground Railroad that ran north. This show takes you on the one that ran south, tracing the journey of thousands of enslaved people who crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico to find freedom. The story is fictional, but it is rooted in real history, and the show wears that responsibility lightly enough to let the joy breathe without ever letting you forget the weight underneath it.

The afternoon I attended, Alan Mendez stepped in as an understudy for Carlos, and he was phenomenal. Completely in command, fully committed, and seamlessly matched with Quijada at every turn. Not for a single moment did the show feel like anything other than a fully realized, fully inhabited performance. If I had not known going in, I would not have guessed. That kind of coverage speaks to how well this production is built and how strong its bench is.

The live looping alone is worth the price of admission. Instruments including guitar, harmonica, accordion, trumpet, drums, and piano get layered in real time until the stage is full of music that two people somehow conjured from scratch in front of you. The score pulls from hip-hop, reggaeton, gospel, jazz, and soul, and it never feels like a grab bag. It feels like a living thing.

But the technical wizardry would mean nothing without the story and the heart, and this show has both in abundance. It is funny, genuinely funny, and then serious, and then moving, and then funny again, and the transitions never feel jarring because the performers are so completely in command of the room. The history lands because the people land first.

This is one of those rare shows that is educational and entertaining in equal measure, where you never feel lectured and never feel like you are just being dazzled. It all means something. Every beat earns its place. I left wanting more time in that world, more story, more music, more of whatever that was. Go while it is still running.