Interview: Candice D'Meza of MISS LARAJ'S HOUSE OF DYSTOPIAN FUTURES at Catastrophic Theatre

Candice D’Meza is a being that never stops evolving; she is constantly being reborn. She is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, actor, activist, filmmaker, and mother. It's so hard to pin down Candice D’Meza because when you think you got her, she shifts again. In her own words, “I use theater performance, multiple literary genres, activism, dance, critical pedagogy, ritual, social practice, documentary, experimental and short film. I use textures that involve grief, world-building, science fiction, Afrofuturism, fantasy, and spiritual technologies of African cosmologies to fashion what we call multidisciplinary experiences.” 

We last saw Candice here in Houston, at least, sort of virtually on film, in her most recent commissioned work, A MAROON’S GUIDE TO TIME AND SPACE, which had its world premiere performance run with THE CATASTROPHIC THEATRE back in the summer of 2023 at the MATCH. It basically featured Harriet Tubman as a time traveler and deejay who took the audience on a wild ride few could ever forget. 

Well, kids, she's back. She's got a new production that opens on February 7th and runs through March 1st called MISS LARAJ’S HOUSE OF DYSTOPIAN FUTURES. Once again, CATASTROPHIC THEATRE is presenting this at the MATCH just in time for Valentine's Day. BROADWAY WORLD writer Brett Cullum got a chance to sit down with her to talk about judgemental rocks and how non-binary the world is.   

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Brett Cullum: Well, your work has such a sense of freedom. It's free of any kind of expectations or rules or anything. And you do make this collage out of theater. And that's what people are really drawn to, especially with these productions, is that you just combine it all. It's wild, and very few people are doing this. How do you describe yourself as an artist?

Candice D’Meza: I have my artist bio, which is the artist's calling card for the business side. You have to write it up and make it sound great. But how would I describe myself? I am always looking at the world from this spiritual lens. A very non-material lens. And I am in a deep, committed relationship with inquiry, questions, and soul searching. I feel all of my art is trying to get to the root of why this group project of what it is to be human sucks so bad. I'm always thinking about what it would take for us to do better at this. And what would it take for us to be freer and more liberated together? I just think about it constantly all day, all night. I'm finding new ways to look at that question.

Brett Cullum: Well, second up, I wanted to ask you an even harder question. How do you describe MISS LARAJ’S HOUSE OF DYSTOPIAN FUTURES? 

Candice D’Meza: Oh, my goodness! I think this is the weirdest thing I've ever done to date. It is so weird. And even as I was reading what I wrote, I was saying, “What is in that head?” I don't know. You know this project brought to you by being on the spectrum. MIS LARAJ’S HOUSE OF DYSTOPIAN FUTURES imagines a world where humans are essentially coming to an impending crisis. We're in the midst of a poly crisis right now with multiple wars, multiple environmental crises, and multiple man-made environmental crises. And so it imagines that moment, after these, all of these crises hit a head. It also explores what a world that de-centers human supremacy would look like. It imagines what plants, animals, minerals, rocks, and the earth itself might have to say to humans about what it is to exist here on this floating rock in space with us. It is done through some really amazing storytellers. All of our artists are queer or non-binary identifying. And I think that's important because they embody the primordial essences of these biological entities. Miss Laraj embodies Earth. We have Miss Mini, who embodies the mineral aspect of rocks. There are geological, you know, massive canyons. We've got Fi And Mommy Mommy Water, who is water. We have Flora and Fauna, and then we have Fungi, which is a digital character. So, the show imagines what it would be like to teach humans what it is to exist through the eyes of all of these primordial entities. And there's song and dance and film. And it's really weird. It's so weird.

Brett Cullum: Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna have so much fun trying to write this summary for any kind of review. I am going to have nightmares about writing this up, but I can not wait for it! Let me ask you something I have always wondered about: Where did you come from? Where were you raised? How did you emerge? 

Candice D’Meza: So I was raised in California in Southern California.

Brett Cullum: Okay, this explains a lot. I am getting the vibe now! 

Candice D’Meza: It really does. It totally tracks. I was raised in Southern California. My mother is African American, and my father is from Haiti. But I grew up just like a Southern California baby and then moved to Texas when I was 25.

Brett Cullum: Why did you come here from Southern California?

Candice D’Meza: Oh, my God, the cost of living is really high, yeah. Yeah. California is expensive. I couldn't do that anymore.

Brett Cullum: But what do you like about here? Are you a fan of Houston? What kind of tractor beam draws you here and makes you say, “Hey, I'm going to be an artist here in Houston.” 

Candice D’Meza: I really owe all of my artistic development to Houston. I don't think there is any artistic me without Houston. The seed was nurtured in Southern California, but as far as the growth goes, I owe THE CATASTROPHIC THEATRE a lot. They gave me my first lead role in a show, especially one that didn't specifically request that the character be an African American actress. It was a struggle, and that was monumental for me! It was BURIED CHILD [by Sam Shepard]. They've really been a big part of supporting all of my growth and expansion, which has been really, really important. However, many other individuals and organizations in Houston have trusted me, believed in me, and helped me grow, so Houston is a very special place in the art and theater ecosystem. I don't know that people know that we have more theaters per capita than most of the US. This is a great network to throw your hand into. There are great artists here, and of course, we have a great funding arts ecosystem here because of the oil revenue, right? Houston's very special and unique in terms of the amount of funding that's available. I love Houston. I think Houston's a great art city, and I'm so excited that the nation recognizes that Houston is a powerhouse. We've got a lot of powerhouse artists from all genres who come out of here.

Brett Cullum: It's amazing. And I've definitely been a champion in the last couple of years. I'm just looking at people coming from New York and LA and all these places saying they're coming here because they have more freedom. That word, again! Freedom to do what they want. Things like money and space don’t restrain them. So, what was your educational background? 

Candice D’Meza: So I went to Cal State Long Beach! Long Beach is the home of Snoop Dogg. I initially studied theater, and then, in my junior year, I changed to black studies. Because I found at the time as an actor... Oh, I hate saying this now! But it feels important. I was having a hard time embodying characters because I did not realize in my head the default human that I was trying to embody was white. When I couldn't be white, I didn't actually have a neutral in my head, even myself, as a point of departure. When I realized what was happening in my brain, I changed to black studies because I wanted to know about that phenomenon: how does this happen socially? What has been happening around this? Where the default human can be somebody else? And I could absorb that. How could I even have absorbed that? That was where I learned all about these social and economic relationships between race, class, and gender and how they have manifested historically around the world, specifically in the United States. And then, because I always think of myself as somebody who wants to change the world, I went and got a Master's degree in public administration. I thought, “Yeah, I'll do government work and change the world.” Oh, it was so cute! But I thought I would change the world that way. But it was really important for me because I learned about bureaucracy and systems and structures. I learned more about some of the impediments with the government to what we're dealing with. As far as some of the limitations on our abilities to be free for damn near all of us. And I learned some systematic approaches that I still use in my art. I learned grant writing. I learned very specific, important work around the administration of the art I do that has been really critical. So it ended up working out, even though it's very different than what I thought I would be doing.

Brett Cullum: No, that's wild because most artists do not know how to get those grants or how to do the business side of the art, and without that to base, to fund your project, you can't get anywhere. You're just gonna be in a cardboard box on a street corner going! “Hey? Look at me! I am a robot, and I will destroy you!” Your work is so brilliant. It's like this collage. When I saw your work at the CATASTROPHIC last year, it was just this poetry: film, theater, and these innovative sets. It was these wild costumes. This music, I mean, it was just everything that was just thrown into this bucket! I felt like I'm just not in a piece of theater. I'm in a world. All of a sudden, I'm in this entire environment, and all of my senses are engaged, and everything's coming at me. And I'm seeing all these different forms of expression. How did you come up with this way of expressing yourself theatrically? It feels so new.

Candice D’Meza: Hmm, I like that. Thank you for saying that. That means a lot to me. I think that works in my favor because I don't have any formal training in playwriting or other things like that. I do feel freer to do what I want. I did act all around the city and at the Alley Theatre. So, I did learn. I had a lot of time looking at scripts, understanding the text, and understanding what good writing and storytelling are. And then, when I shifted to multidisciplinary art outside of the theater, I was exposed to a whole new world where artists could jump really far out into things I thought were weird and awkward, and I felt uncomfortable. There were still fewer limitations than the traditional theater that I cut my teeth on. And I really loved that. And this opportunity to be free. I threw it all in a blender, like all these things I ruminate on. As I said earlier, shout out to being on the spectrum for the rumination and inspiration. 

Brett Cullum: I have been writing and reviewing for BROADWAY WORLD for over a decade. Black companies here in Houston include the ENSEMBLE THEATRE, VINCENT VICTORIA PRESENTS, and the SANKOFA COLLECTIVE. What they're doing feels like they deal with cultural heritage, which we TOTALLY need, but they work a lot with, for lack of a better word, the past or the present and how the past interferes with the present, and vice versa. And you, Candice, you're owning the future, and it's so cool to see you actually are projecting this Afrofuturism that I don't even think I had a definition of that until I saw your show and started like deep diving. And, of course, I did when I saw that LOVECRAFT COUNTRY series on HBO, which blew my mind, too. Who influenced you as an artist?

Candice D’Meza: LOVECRAFT COUNTRY is something I really love. Misha Green! I love the work that she and the other writers in the room did for the show, and I think that was when I realized that I am a science fiction person, and I hadn't really known that. But it made sense once I realized it. But I'm like, "Oh, this is who I am! This is what I do.” And then the other show that really inspired me was ATLANTA. They just broke all the rules by the time they got to season four. It was just odd and disconnected story-wise, and I loved that freedom, and I think those would probably be my biggest influences.

I'm very bored and uninterested in dealing with the past or the present. I'm uninterested. A big thrust of my work is that I don't want to tell stories of oppression; there is no real path to freedom there. There's only telling someone else's narrative. And so, if I'm going to create a lane for myself and the people I love to exist, I have to look at the future. I have to find that thread to place them safely. And so I don't deal with oppression. It's actually explicit in MAROON’S GUIDE. It says, “There is no whiteness in the making of this piece. We are not escaping from slavery. We're not escaping, and Harriet [Tubman] is in a battle with no one.” If you make that the central conflict, it prioritizes the system you're trying to subvert again.

It's the same with MISS LARAJ’S HOUSE OF DYSTOPIAN FUTURES, which I call Queer Futurism. I'm on a new thread. I want to decenter humans completely, like everything that humans make, what they label. What if we were not important anymore? What if we looked at what we made twice or even three times? What if we trusted nature more than we trusted the human impulse to categorize? I feel like that's the freest way we can get it. I keep my feet in the present, but I keep my heart and my head in the future.

I am so excited about this show because it's my first foray into my new mental fixation, which I'm labeling Queer Futures, and I'm sure that label exists, but I'm borrowing it. I love the idea of the future through this show, where we, as humans, position ourselves within the larger spectrum of all life. When we position humans as part of nature, the things that we find divisive, like transphobia… there is no precedent for that. In nature, there is no precedent for homophobia. There is no precedent. There's not even, I think, from a natural lens. There wouldn't even be a need for labeling because there is no opposing. All of these things exist so beautifully in nature as a function of an ecosystem of care. Humans, if we could really just get off ourselves as we think being supreme, we could really find, by looking at these interrelationships, ways that we could organize ourselves in our society that would help us to get out of our own way in terms of how we're limiting empathy to each other. I love that because the future to me is us when we rejoin plants. That future is clear. That future is so queer-coded. I find my black womanhood very much exists outside of a gender binary. I've never felt like I've had to exist in the gender binary that exists in the white colonial imagination. An expansiveness has been afforded because my identity has always been at odds with every part of society. It was meant to be oppressive. But it's actually been liberating because I was free from the get-go. I love looking at plants and animals as prophets, as teachers, as master teachers. They show us that what we're grappling with is like biology, not even “1,” “0,” “1.” It's the basis for nature that has already figured out how to evolve, to make sure that everybody fits in, and already figured that out hundreds of millions of years ago. And we're still on square one.

And then also, there's going to be very elaborate and flamboyant costumes, and there's a whole dance number again, and just getting roasted by nature, which I really just want to see humans get roasted. Just get talked bad to by the plants and animals who are completely above and beyond the human definitions of gender and just look fabulous. It's my dream right now.

Brett Cullum: It's a great dream to have right now because it does feel like such a scary time to be queer. I mean, it's really been a hard year for anybody embracing anything but the binary, so we need MISS LARAJ more than ever.

Candice D’Meza: I really hope to take all these communities that I love and that I'm a part of. They have named and claimed me, and I name and claim them. I'm just trying to take us and deposit us into a little homeland. It’s a future homeland where, in spite of what's happening socially, there is this free place in the heart that we can hold as a promised land. That's what I'm hoping. And I'm hoping that thread of that feeling of promised land becomes infectious enough that you can't go backward once you feel it. You can't unfree once somebody's given you a space to be free.

Brett Cullum: Well, there you go, you are an artistic Harriet Tubman, Candice. 

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