Big Mac Attack
By David Bateman
“Blame it on the Boy Scouts. They got me into drag for the first time. I was Mrs. Casey Jones for my Cub Scout Troop when I was 8. I’ve like dresses ever since.”
- Pritsine Condition (The Cockettes)
In the tradition of those fabulous golden oldies form the San Franciscan sixties, the Cockettes, Rhubarb performer Taylor Mac takes avant-garde drag to a new level of fabulous absurdity in his ‘n her intensely political, hilarious, and poignant show ‘The Be[a]st of Taylor Mac.” I caught the performance as part of the PUSH festival last week in Vancouver and was mesmerized from start to finish by the conversational, high energy spectacle that ran the course of ninety non-stop minutes of musing, meditation, and song on everything from 911 to the lovably bitchy divide between different kinds of drag queens. When Mac tells the audience that more traditional glamour queens look at ‘his’ outfits and scream, “that is so wrong,” or describes a particular response from a group of drunken men outside a Scottish bar, you know this drag queen extraordinaire has been around the block more than a few times.
Pristine Condition (The Cockettes)
I was a mere teenager when the Cockettes made their debut in 1969, flailing about in the provincially located nether regions craving some avant-garde drag, only able to find anything even remotely intriguing in my Mama’s closet. Taylor Mac is a welcome reminder of those dysphoric daze as he takes us on a wild ride through the metaphoric global closet and treats drag lovers, and everyone else in between, to a conversational journey through American politics in an interactive fashion unconscious show of abfab proportions. In a PUSH publicity blurb Colin Thomas exclaimed that Mac’s compassion is even more radical than his make-up.” Indeed – the expressive face punctuated by carefully calculated glam/fright drag, turns the evening into a grand exploration of the beautiful and the grotesque as it applies to a North American penchant for fear and loathing in the face of global terrorist threats. Mac somehow makes it all seem terribly funny and his beautiful singing voice and ukelele skills decorate the overall show with a multitude of musical panache. Colin Thomas goes on to say that;
But it’s his generosity that’s really arresting. The Be(A)st, a pastiche of some of Mac’s earlier shows, includes standup comedy, yards of fabric, and a handful of sad, beautiful, funny songs, including “The Palace of the End”, in which American vice president Dick Cheney’s wife, Lynne, and Saddam Hussein briefly recognize one another’s humanity. By the end of the song, you feel empathy for them both.
You don’t wanna miss the Big Mac attack at Rhubarb this week. It is a heartwarming rib tickling, slightly scarey, and totally gorgeous sight to behold.
