To Oakland’s Mylo Cardona, theater is a space of community and belonging. For them, artistic expression is an extension of both the personal and the political—creation as an act of resistance against hierarchical structures of the status quo.
They became interested in theater in high school, seeking refuge and reprieve from a world that felt harsh and unwelcoming. Being a young queer person meant feeling excluded from spaces around them. Theater offered them an opportunity to step into other people’s experiences and connect with other LGBTQ+ youth.
Like any art form, theater can come with creative slumps. To get themselves out of it, Cardona says, perspective is everything. Sometimes that means taking a step back from their project, or prioritizing rest. “If that doesn’t work,” Cardona says, “I will talk to elders who have been in creative slumps before me, artists that I trust, other theater community members [and ask], ‘What do you think?’” They say that theater is all about figuring things out in community, and leaning on each other for resources and ideas.
Cardona is realizing their passions for theater and community organizing by directing The Fre, written by Taylor Mac and hosted by the Oakland Theater Project. The play takes place in a ball pit, with the main character speaking in iambic pentameter while a mob of dirty “fre” prepare to eat him.
Cardona says, “While preparing for this play and thinking about the revolution, I [thought], we can’t abandon the ‘fre’ in this new world, no matter what we think of them.”
Humor and subversion, they explain, are key elements that can be useful in understanding people different from us. Instead of resisting the “enemy,” Cardona believes in finding common ground. Clowns, in this case, serve as the perfect metaphor.
“The clown’s ability to reflect ourselves back and satirize the failures of our society places this low-status character at an incredibly influential and powerful position,” they say. “Unlike traditional activism, the clown’s approach uses humor and vulnerability to disarm defenses and reveal deeper truths without getting oneself killed.”
Cardona also believes that uplifting queer art begins with dismantling hierarchical structures. While theater can be a very top-down system of creation, with the director placed at the top, they believe in allowing queer people to collaborate and contribute wherever possible, creating a free flow of ideas and support. “It’s a better way for me,” says Cardona, “and so finding ways that each queer artist can feel like whatever it is that they’re working on is theirs, too, giving them the freedom to insert themselves in whatever way that looks like, is what’s important.”
To Cardona, pride is the opposite of shame, which is what performance is all about. It’s a verb and a profound act of resistance.
“Pride is not just visibility and a celebration of queerness,” Cardona says, “but also a reminder of the fact that all of our rights and the ways that we’re able to be free now is because of the ways our ancestors and our transcestors fought for that. And it’s our responsibility to continue that fight, because the fight is simply not over—in fact, there are so many.”
Cardona makes it clear where they stand on the state of the world, and believes queer art is an important facet for resisting oppression.
“Spread of misinformation, continuous gutting of education funding, relentless attacking of teachers and professors, systemic creation of underserved communities that are quite frankly too busy working three jobs to survive to think about intellectualism—to ponder is a privilege in a world governed and overrun by corruption, division and the denial of our humanity,” Cardona says. “What better way to return us to ourselves and remind us what we are fighting for than the art of play? Thank you, Fre, for teaching me that.”
‘The Fre’ by Taylor Mac, directed by Mylo Cardona, now through June 28 at Oakland Theater Project. Tickets at 510.646.1126 or bo*******@*******************ct.org; oaklandtheaterproject.org.
