What's beneath the wig?
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday February 18, 2011
Drag performer Taylor Mac wants to challenge audiences, writes Paris Pompor. 'I'm a big fan of taking wigs off," New Yorker Taylor Mac says. Yet wigs aren't the only accoutrements regularly ditched by the flamboyant drag artist.During his last delightfully ramshackle 2007 Sydney performance, Mac began by looking like a female graduate of the more-is-more school of accessorising. Shedding layers of make-up, sequins, hair and fabric like a crazed, speed-moulting reptile, Mac stood before us 90 minutes later exhausted, broken and almost naked, singing with the poignancy of a lost schoolboy."I start off looking as weirdly fabulous as I can and then that kind of gets forgotten about," Mac chuckles . "I'm a big fan of deconstruction. I like it when a mess is made on stage."Mac's performances draw on the glory days of drag, before lip-syncing, misogyny and audience-goading replaced talent.With his trusty ukulele and impeccable timing, Mac tackles politics as well as high heels, artfully straddling the cleavage between musical comedy and thought-provoking theatre."I don't want my shows to just be one thing," Mac says. "I want them to ... surprise everybody. I try to have some of it be intellectual, some of it sensational."When not performing solo song and monologue shows, Mac is an Obie Award-winning playwright and self-confessed "community activist".Yet whether writing for himself or others, Mac is always looking to engage. Audiences are encouraged to think, talk, cry and laugh about everything from patriarchy and war to homogeneity and gentrification. "My goal is to remind people of their humanity and the whole range of [that] humanity," Mac says.His latest show in Sydney is called The Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook. Partly inspired by lazy critics repeatedly equating Mac with Tiny Tim - simply for playing ukulele - the show's real proposition is in its subtitle, Comparison is Violence."There's a whole conversation that happens throughout the piece about comparison," Mac says. "It's a show that challenges the audience."Mac's challenge is to question the insidious analogising that pervades many aspects of our lives, whether we're comparing lovers, friends, artistic works or decades. "It's really about how we treat each other," Mac says."Do we examine each other, meet each other, in the present moment or are we always contextualising each other?"So it's actually a much deeper show than it might look. But I put that kind of showy veneer on throughout the whole thing, so people can just walk away being fully entertained. Or they can walk away hopefully thinking about it."THE ZIGGY STARDUST MEETS TINY TIM SONGBOOKFebruary 25-March 4, 8.30pm, Sydney Opera House Studio, 9250 7777, $45.
© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald
