Story of mixed-race identity clouded by confusion

Mixie and the Halfbreeds (out of 4) Written by Adrienne Wong and Julie Tamiko-Manning. Directed by Jenna Rodgers. Until April 15 at Pia Bouman School for Ballet, 6 Noble St. fu-GEN.org

The experience of growing up and living mixed-race is a complex thing, impossible to pare down to a single perspective, and yet there is a similarity that unites mixed-race people.

But in its examination of that duality, Mixie and the Half

breeds — a 2009 play by Adrienne Wong and Julie Tamiko-Manning making its Toronto debut in an updated production with fu-GEN Theatre Company — unfortunately gets caught up in its own confusion.

Wong and Tamiko-Manning’s conceit is a play within a play. Performers Zoe Doyle and Vanessa Trenton are the hosts of this production, wearing the coat of a ringleader (trading the top hat for fabric hats in the shape of an egg and a banana, the significance of those foods will be revealed if it’s not immediately clear), they introduce the audience into the fictional world of the play.

Mixie (Doyle) and Trixie (Trenton) are neighbours who have opposite personalities.

Mixie is shy, agitated and clutches a stuffed grain of rice called Shortgrain like a security blanket.

Trixie is extroverted, vegan and has bleached blond hair and high heels, a sunny disposition and an allergy to rice.

They do, however, share a glaring similarity — each of them have been followed by a “Blond” since childhood (Alexandra Crenian and Dedra McDermott), silent female spirits, invisible to others, who dance their way into convincing Mixie and Trixie to adopt a blond hairstyle.

Obviously, Trixie’s Blond has been far more successful than Mixie’s.

When these two blonds meet in the real world, they unleash a portal into the “Blond Forest,” and suck Mixie and Trixie in with them, featuring a chorus of dancing blonds (Bethany Pethick, Diana Reyes and YUI) in Ming-Bo Lam’s choreography.

Alison Yanota’s set of movable mirrored pillars suit the flexibility of the play, transitioning from theatrical props in Zoe and Nessa’s hosting segments to the tall trees of the Blond Forest, all while reminding the audience of the play’s theme of reckoning one’s identity with one’s appearance.

Unfortunately, Jenna Rodgers’s directing hand struggles to pull these disparate worlds together into a cohesive play.

Although thematically provocative — the form of the play echoes the lived experience of Mixie and Trixie caught between different cultures — the three different realms in Mixie and the Halfbreeds pose a challenge in transitions and clarity and Rodgers sometimes fails to keep the audience from feeling lost.

This isn’t entirely helped by Wong and Tamiko-Manning’s script, which moves quickly into far-fetched scenarios, leaving the audience behind.

The purpose for Mixie and Trixie’s arrival into the Blond Forest is never fully explained, and the rules of this space are likewise kept in a frustrating mystery.

When Doyle and Trenton are let loose as the emcees, however, the play finds stronger footing.

Directly addressing the audi- ence, the play’s tongue-incheek sense of humour comes out clearest, as Trenton and Doyle force the audience to confront their notions of race, culture and identity.

It also gives them the opportunity to involve their personal backgrounds into the story of Trixie and Mixie, which complicates Wong and TamikoManning’s ideas of identity and culture even further (Trenton is half Filipino and half Greek, cast to fill Wong’s part, written as Chinese-French Canadian, which is smartly touched upon as a comment of racial casting in theatre).

The effectiveness of these sections lets Wong and TamikoManning, as well as Rodgers, Doyle and Trenton, to directly confront the experiences of mixed-race identities, which suggests there’s a simpler way to dive into such complex issues.