Donald Mzondo
Donald Mzondo is magic. That is the only conclusion worth arriving at to explain a welcome let-up in the weather, which moments before we meet, and for several days prior, has modulated between dense mist and sheeting downpour. An Irish summer outdoing itself, even by its own high standard, kindly permits us an hour to conduct our interview outdoors. Arranging our meeting over private message on Twitter, and having seen the forecast, I jokingly asked Donald to cast a spell for some meteorological reprieve. He delivered.
I’m not surprised. Donald’s alter-ego is the delightfully titled Viola Gayvis, and it’s not uncommon to see drag queens as being imbued with witchy qualities. More than simply performers or artists, they are sometimes seen as beings akin to queer shamans. Supernatural mediums located between the worldly and the spiritual, transcending more than just the gender binary. They are in possession of an alchemy that extends far beyond the make-up bag. And I’m a believer.
Dressed plainly in blue jeans, a simple tee and Vans on the day that we meet, thick-framed glasses lend Donald’s studied boy-next-door look a bookishness. He could be dressed like any of his computer science classmates, I think, as I approach him. Getting nearer, my cursory assessment is betrayed by an impressively garish iridescent shopping bag swinging from the crook of his arm. It struggles to contain its precious cargo: a larger-than-life platinum blonde wig; a shocking, frothy confection seemingly fizzing over from within.
A special commission by Donald for Viola, he tells me as we sit down, the piece is a gift to mark one year since her arrival into the world and onto the stage. And she arrived, making her debut at Veda’s Witchy Wednesday in the George, one of the city’s more popular drag nights. Such a break, a slot on the scene’s weekly schedule that most queens have to hustle hard to be considered for, I’m told, is a rarity. While Viola might have a personality as outsized as that wig, Donald is more humble. “I feel special to be given that opportunity; being asked and being let in to a family. I never take that for granted.”
Jumpsuits over dresses, sharp jackets, tailored trousers: these are the backbone of Viola’s wardrobe and Grace Jones is the first citation. I’m more interested, however, in the women who have influenced Donald closer to home. As the only man in his house, he says, his personal matriarchy, of mother, aunts, little sister and cousins, have all played their part. “As black women, they see the world in a very different way than anybody else. They’re strong, they’re resilient, they don’t take shit from nobody.” These are qualities absorbed by Donald, amplified by Viola. What demarcates his on-stage and off-stage personas, he says, is the sense of power, of invincibility, of feeling unstoppable, that comes with getting into character and taking to the floor. I suggest to him that he is all of these things too.
Speaking about his close and extended family, I’m keen to learn more about Donald’s home life. When interviewing other Afro-Irish men for this website, most have pointed me to a tension that can exist between two central parts of their being: their sexuality and their skin colour. I ask Donald if he has come across this. He has, acknowledging the difficulty in balancing one’s blackness and one’s gayness, and pointing to sections of the black community that can react to LGBTQIA+ and queer people with negativity. “That can make you feel very detached from your blackness,” he says. “It did for me for a while.” He is only interested in black people who stand for all black lives.
Has his mother met Viola? He deadpans. “I haven’t said it to her, but there are wigs all over my room.” Although he hasn’t had ‘the conversation’ with her, he thinks she knows. She has never said anything negative, he says, and he mentions, smiling, how he sometimes paints her face before she goes out on the town with her girlfriends. Always at the back of Donald’s mind, however, is his own welfare and having a safety net should things ever go south, as he puts it.
Viola may only be a year old, but it’s been a year that has demanded she come of age quickly. The public health emergency continues to threaten an already struggling LGBTQIA+ and queer social scene, the livelihoods of staff, DJs and performers, and crucial in-person opportunities for community-building, support and belonging. More personally, more powerfully, though, Viola became only the second working black drag queen in Ireland, during a year which saw a deepening of anger and action against racism, direct provision and police violence, following the murder of George Flloyd in the United States.
“[That] projected my drag toward a more political side, which I never intended,” reflects Donald. It is a potent backdrop to perform before, but he has taken it as an opportunity to inform Viola’s fans, as well as himself of the extent of racism in Ireland. Moreover, it caused him to interrogate his own encounters of an almost all-white scene. Sharing some of his experiences with me, Donald recites a litany of predictably grim tropes about black men and their desirability, which he continues to receive on dating apps, despite all that is going on, he says. “They might think it’s a compliment, but I feel fetishised, I feel like a piece of meat. The first thing they see, the only thing they see, is my skin.”
We speak about the inherent racism of ‘it’s just a preference’ and the consumption of black culture and parlance by seemingly insatiable white gay appetites, often with little, if any, further acknowledgement of wider black experience. I ask Donald how he feels about taking the time to educate others. He sees two sides: “On the one hand, If I don’t do it, as a person who lives through those experiences in this community – who will? On the other hand, Google is free. The resources are out there.” Just as he wants to be part of a black community that is LGBTQIA+ and queer-inclusive, he wants the LGBTQIA+ and queer communities to do more, to do better for their black and POC siblings. “The scene I experience is completely different to the one you experience,” he says, name-checking Black Pride Ireland and Origins Eile, which provide members of Ireland's Afro-Irish LGBTQIA+ and queer communities with a backing they don't necessarily feel they have from the wider community.
I eyeball an increasingly dark and pregnant sky, and suggest we end our conversation there. We still have photographs to take and I refuse to be responsible for, or even witness to the drowning of that glorious wig, safely, lovingly, stowed between Donald’s feet. I do request a sneak peak of the piece in-situ, which he later sends me. It does not – it could never – disappoint. As we gather ourselves, as others around us in the park that we’ve been sitting in disperse for shelter, I ask him what he enjoys most about drag. Without missing a beat, his answer is threefold and perfectly crafted. “Standing out, standing up for myself and speaking out.”
Learn more about Origins Eile and donate here. Learn more about Black Pride Ireland and donate here.
