Forum Post 8--Taylor Mac and Ridiculous Theatre

Dear ones--

Erin has provided us with the trailer to Taylor Mac's show:

She also poses this prompt:

A 24-Decade History a Popular Music is a show written created by Taylor Mac. It shines a light on historical music from 1776 to the present day. In this show, Taylor Mac address is a lot of issues such as politics, racial discrimination, in the queer community. In this show, he sings over 200 songs in a 24-hour period. He also engages with audience participation such as throwing ping pong balls and in having them sit down during the second to act as they were on a boat. From my expected, I think learning about this was a great experience. I think that this type of art is not what we're used to, and it could have impacted so many lives. Also, as an ally of the LGBTQ community, I think this helped better educate myself on the social issues that some of my peers have gone through. This is the type of art that I love to support, and I feel as though we can all learn from this in some type of way. So, this leads me to a few questions that I have.

 Question: What aspect of Taylor Mac’s show stood out to you the most? Do you think he message would’ve been equally effective if the show was cut short?

Great question. Of course, as you know from the article, Mac spent years developing and trying out the show decade-by-decade (hour by hour), stringing them together into six-hour/six-decade stretches, and then finally performing the whole thing. It's like training for a marathon, Mac says. Would you want to see the whole thing or just a bit of it?

Here's Théo's prompt:

Can we find truth in the absurd and ridiculous? How does the heightened sensory experience of Taylor Mac's performance change the way these songs and poems are understood by the audience?

This performance falls squarely into the "Theatre of the Ridiculous". The length of the show reflects this. What sort of person wants to be on stage for 24 straight hours? What sort of person would want to watch that? It's an absurd idea, right? It's an impossibly long time, and demands a much larger commitment than most people are used to giving to media. Our shows, movies, podcasts, concerts typically last one to four hours. What Mac asks of the audience is not simply to experience the songs and poems of America's past, to passively enjoy them, but to live with them. A 24-Decade History of Popular Music brings the audience into the world of the show through audience interaction, but also simply by requesting a day of their life. It's the weirdest kind of meditation.

As I mentioned in Wednesday's zoom, Mac is often aligned with a tradition known as the Theater of the Ridiculous, a form that emerged in the US in the 1960s characterized by gay themes, camp, and a trash-fabulous aesthetic. Erin and Théo both share this article about Ridiculous Theatre.

Some of the best-known work to come out of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company are campy farces like Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep. Two actors play seven+ roles in a very silly supernatural melodrama with vampires, mummies, and even a werewolf transformation on stage:

Ludlam's style influenced playwright Charles Busch, especially his Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. Here's Busch (who went on to become a Broadway playwright) describing his little show, which started as a last-minute lark and went on to be a cult classic of the stage:

Here's a clip from a production:

As you can see, it's high camp, tongue-in-cheek (but, as Busch notes in his interview, hard to play well).  Camp and parody were also important to lesbian theatre (as in, theatre of/by/for lesbians) in the 80s. See, for example Holly Hughes's Dress Suits to Hire or Split Britches/Bloolips's Belle Reprieve. 

Split Britches - Belle Reprieve from Hemispheric Institute on Vimeo.

Some of you may also remember The Secretaries by the Five Lesbian Brothers, a troupe that also traffics in camp and parody:

 The impressive thing about Five Lesbian Brothers and Taylor Mac is that, within the parody and tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top spectacle, they communicate a clear perspective. For Mac, that perspective involves re-telling American history from the perspective of the marginalized.

How does Mac's Ridiculous-influenced style--a cabaret show lasting 24 hours, with elaborate costumes built from discarded materials, with extensive audience involvement--affect the tenor and appeal of the message he's delivering?

Looking forward to hearing what you all think,

JF