A sprinkling of drag stardust
When Taylor Mac wants to shock, it’s not how you’d expect. Take, for example, his front cover for New York’s gay guide, Next. On it Taylor is the epitome of panstick goddess — blond locks, big lashes, beautiful contours.
Not one trace of the drag-freak look that is synonymous with Taylor Mac.
And therein lies the charm: when Mac sets out to shock, he does so in the most sublime fashion possible. After all, his entire career is built on outrageous looks — shock and chaos his cabaret currency.
“My friend Karl Giant did the photograph and make up for it,” Taylor said of the Next cover he did in collaboration with America’s Next Top Model makeup artist supreme.
“And we’ve done a couple of photos of me, but for this one we wondered what would be the most shocking thing for me to do. And I’ve gotten so much response from it — finally, he does pretty drag!
“Everybody always wants to make me pretty. In the club world, my friends always want me to do pretty drag because it’s part of their heritage and all the drag queens look at me like ‘Eeeewww, what’s wrong with you? Why would you wanna look crazy?’.”
You see, Mac is internationally recognised for his particular sense of drag. Some call it kooky drag. Others circus-freak drag. Even car-crash drag.
And then there are those who call it as it is, those who truly understand the craft — drag, as it should be.
After all, drag queens are the ones in our community who highlight our tragedies, who remind us of our humanity.
“Fairly early on I wanted to take what I felt on the inside in relation to a topic,” Mac said.
“So I’d take a topic and write down how I felt in relation to it and from there it happened to be both feminine and masculine, and chaotic and crazy and highly theatrical.
“And it had this real drag aesthetic to it. It was conceptual in that way. And when I saw myself I saw this person who usually hides behind the T-shirt, because when you’re walking down the street in T-shirt and jeans, that’s when you’re hiding. You’re blending in with everybody else.
“But on stage you wanna stand out, so that’s when you gotta show what you normally don’t show. And I felt like that was what I was doing: I was showing part of myself that I don’t normally show. It was really liberating. And wonderful.”
The result has seen Mac travel the world as one of New York’s best cabaret exports. And when he lands in Sydney this February, he’ll be giving Mardi Gras audiences twice the love.
“I decided I wanted to sing other people’s songs and play around, but I still wanted to talk about something,” Taylor said of the weirdly titled Taylor Mac In Concert: The Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook or Comparison is Violence.
“So I decided to talk about comparisons and why people compare, and it’s really quite fascinating and is not something people really talk about.
“So I’ve based the show on Ziggy Stardust and Tiny Tim, two people who seemingly have nothing in common. I decided to do songs only they’ve performed. It’s been a hoot. I’ve come to respect both David Bowie and Tiny Tim for what they do.”
And Mac’s advice to burgeoning drag superstars?
“Find out who you are without praise or blame or fear, to paraphrase Quentin Crisp. So it may be you’re a glamour princess and people think you’re not a glamour princess and they tell you you’re not. But if that’s who you are inside, then that’s who you are. Be it.
“And it could be that you’re a freak-drag artist, like myself.”
info: Taylor Mac In Concert: The Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook or Comparison is Violence plays the Sydney Opera House on February 25-26 as part of this year’s Mardi Gras Festival. Bookings and details via www.sydneyoperahouse.com or call 02 9250 7777.
By SCOTT-PATRICK MITCHELL
