Mx

Live-streaming from The Cultch until February 24
Tickets from $29 at 604-251-1363 or thecultch.com/event/mx

Posted February 20, 2021

Lili Robinson’s play Mx reminds me that I am white, cisgender and heterosexual.  No surprises – that’s me. Privileged.

The only mystery in my family is my maternal grandmother who dropped my mother off, at the age of four, at a Toronto orphanage in 1914 and was never heard from again. My mother spent her entire life trying to find her mother with no success.

So I understand young playwright Lili Robinson (they/them) searching for their father, an African American, whom they never knew; Mx is drawn from Robinson’s own experience, their own journey.

In the play, Robinson’s surrogate Max has been raised by her white, Canadian mother and now, a gender-uncertain, mixed-race young adult, Max is looking for answers. How does she identify herself? How much does DNA count? Or is it all about upbringing?

Max (Lili Robinson) gets lucky and finds herself selected as a guest on The Nancy Show hosted by the glamourous, sexy, sometimes foul-mouthed Mz Nancy (Alisha Davidson). The show’s purpose is to help people from the African diaspora connect with their ancestors.

“Havin’ a boody no one showed you how to use”, is what Mz Nancy says when watching inhibited Max awkwardly dancing. Time to show Max how to get her groove on, reconnect with her African roots.

As a 2019 Fringe play, Mx won the Cultchivating the Fringe Award and has gone on to be developed for the digital stage by the playwright, co-directors Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and Jiv Parasram as well as the video and tech team.

Robinson has a lot to say about the consumption of black culture and this concern is represented by Samantha (Emily Jane King), a young white woman who befriends Max and tries to dissuade her from her quest.

It’s eventually obvious that Mz Nancy and Samantha are figments of Max’s tortured imagination. They are polar opposites: connect with your roots/deny your roots. It’s a battle of biblical proportions for Max’s black or white soul.

Davidson, in a fiery red-on-red costume (by CS Fergusson-Vaux) – turban, tight pants and a fancy crop-top – is dynamite in the role: brassy, full of attitude, sometimes foul-mouthed, and referring to the online audience as “Dear audience” or “y’all”.

Robinson is geeky, nervous and hesitant as Max, while King plays Samantha (also known as The Collector) as sweet, charming, slyly persuasive – like the Garden of Eden snake, trying to sabotage Max’s journey. “I will not let you collect me,” Max eventually tells Samantha in her struggle to resist being culturally consumed or appropriated.

Built into to the show is a Live Chat taking up about ¼ of the screen. You can’t get rid of it and it’s constantly being added to with “Hi”, “wow”, “yay” and a running, second-by-second commentary from viewers. While I recognize that it can make the audience feel part of the action, it’s mostly a distraction except when Mz Nancy actually asks us for input – and then it works really well.

Digital technology makes everything seem possible so in Mx we even have a character who comes out of Max’s phone. There are blurrypk scenes and swirling colours, a cataclysm in the dark and more ‘stuff’ than we need. I wondered if the original stage version was cleaner, less cluttered.

However, developed with the assistance of the Playwrights Theatre Centre and presented by Off the Corner Productions, Mx is bound to find its audience and if the Live Chat is any indication, y’all might be lovin’ it.